


Of Robbing Banks and Stealing Hearts

by Pearson



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Supervillain AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearson/pseuds/Pearson
Summary: Nayeon is quite possibly the pettiest supervillain ever, Sana is eager to be a bad influence, and Tzuyu just wants to have one peaceful day.





	1. First Meeting

Im Nayeon was not a fan of responsibility.

She understood the saying about great power and all that, but she just didn’t feel like it suited her. People who were gifted with powers, whether it be through genes or freak lab accidents, of course they would feel some sort of responsibility to the world. They were capable of things normal humans weren’t, and it was through sheer luck that they had their powers. Who among them wouldn’t feel a bit guilty if they didn’t use their powers for good?

But Nayeon, she hadn’t gotten her powers by pure chance. Yes, a freak lightning strike had turned her into a genius capable of understanding time on a level no one else could even comprehend, but turning her knowledge into an actual superpower was something she’d achieved on her own. Nayeon worked hard for years to create her ‘reversal light’, and no one would even grant her the courtesy of calling it that. Instead, they used the nickname given by her mortal enemy: The Time Stick.

The device wasn’t even a stick, it was a wand made of metal. God, she hated Tzuyu.

Anyway, the point is, Nayeon didn’t feel the need to dedicate her life to saving others. She’d earned her power through her own skills, and so she felt like she had the right to do what she pleased with it.

And if she wanted to dedicate herself to being the biggest thorn in the side of Seoul’s main superhero, well she would do exactly that. She had her reasons, and she didn’t owe random strangers an explanation. If that made people call her a ‘supervillain’, so be it.

To be fair to her critics, she _was_ in the middle of orchestrating a kidnapping.

She knocked impatiently on the door of Chaeyoung’s apartment. The shorter girl opened it, saw Nayeon standing there, and rolled her eyes.

“Seriously? Do you never get tired of this?”

“Rude.” Nayeon pouted. “And come on, it’s been a whole month since I last kidnapped you. We both knew this was coming.”

“But why today? Tzuyu and I are supposed to go out tonight.”

“I’m ruining Tzuyu’s evening?” Nayeon beamed. “Perfect. Here’s the ransom note, let’s go.”

Chaeyoung took the piece of paper, eyeing it like it was a particularly disgusting cockroach.

“Do we really have to do this?”

“Either you come with me now, or I rewind time and kidnap you in a less pleasant manner.”

Chaeyoung sighed, but shuffled inside to leave the note on her kitchen table. Her expression was adorably grumpy when she returned, and Nayeon slung an arm around her shoulder, half skipping half dragging Chaeyoung towards the elevator.

“This is going to be so much fun! How long do you think it’ll take before she notices that you’re gone?”

“She’s supposed to be home in twenty minutes, so not long.”

“Excellent.” Nayeon grinned. “Then she’ll rush to find you and have no choice but to agree to my demands.”

“Have you even thought of your demands yet?”

“I have twenty minutes, I’ll think of something. Now shut up, you’re supposed to be the damsel in distress.”

“It’s not my fault you suck at being evil.”

“Excuse you!” They exited the lift. “Who was number one on Forbes list of most dangerous superpowered individuals? Because it wasn’t your girlfriend, and it definitely wasn’t you.”

“Of course you were number one, your power is incredible.” Somehow, Chaeyoung made that sound like an insult. “But despite how terrifying your power is, no one in this city is actually scared of you. Every civilian that lives here knows you’re a dumbass who’s incapable of being more than a public annoyance.”

“Wow. Words hurt.” Nayeon dragged her over to her car. “Sometimes I miss the days you were actually scared of me.”

“Maybe if this wasn’t your twelfth time kidnapping me, I’d be a little more nervous. As it is, I’m just mildly concerned about your sanity.”

“I’m perfectly sane. Now tie your hands together and get in the backseat.”

Chaeyoung rolled her eyes again, but complied.

“I’m just saying, you’ve been carrying this grudge around since you were sixteen, and you’re the only one left who still cares about it. Tzuyu is sick of her girlfriend being kidnapped, Jihyo is sick of trying to be friends with both sides, and I’m sick of always being your hostage. Couldn’t you just… let it go?”

“Let it go?” Nayeon gasped. “Chaeyoung, you were _there_. You _know_ how much Jihyo wanted that gold medal. But no, Tzuyu just had to challenge her and steal her throne. Jihyo was _devastated_.”

“It was a competition, we were at a summer camp, and Tzuyu was literally twelve. Jihyo forgave her once the camp was over, yet you held onto this one incident for _six years.”_

“Well yeah, but Jihyo would have done the same if our roles were reversed. That’s what friends do.”

Nayeon started the car, driving towards the docklands. She was in a bit of a rush today, so her main hostage holding warehouse would have to do. It didn’t have the best dramatic lighting, but it had enough space for her and Tzuyu to have a proper duel.

“Imagine how amazing your life could be if you found something other than spite to motivate you.” Chaeyoung was still being pushy. “You could be working together with Tzuyu to make this city a better place, but instead you’re wasting all your time being her archnemesis.”

“You call it wasting time, I call it time well spent. Besides, considering how my power works, time isn’t as valuable to me as it is to the rest of you.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are the pettiest person alive?”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

They arrived at the warehouse, and Nayeon went to work tying Chaeyoung to a chair in the centre of the room. A single lightbulb hanging above her created the perfect atmosphere. Chaeyoung’s permanently unimpressed expression ruined the mood somewhat, but Nayeon was never one to let the little things get her down.

Exactly thirty-one minutes and ten seconds later, the door of the warehouse was smashed open. Nayeon winced a little as her brand new padlock was destroyed, but that wasn’t enough to wipe the smile off her face.

“Tzuyu! Or should I say, Hulk! We meet again! Come to beg for the life of your lovely little girlfriend?”

“Little?” Chaeyoung hissed. “I'm not even that short. Fuck you.”

The hero in question stood calmly in the doorway, giving Nayeon a flat glare. Unlike the Hulk from the comic books, Tzuyu's strength was a constant part of her, and so she retained her normal body whenever she fought. Sometimes supervillains would pass through the city and expect to fight a hulking green monster, and Nayeon always had a great time laughing at their faces when they got destroyed by a teenage Taiwanese girl. Tourists honestly had no sense.

“I’m really not in the mood today.” Tzuyu warned.

“This isn’t about what you want!” Nayeon pointed her wand directly at her archnemesis. “This is about what _I_ want!”

“Ok, so what do you want?”

“I want a duel to the death!”

“No.”

“What? Come on!” Nayeon whined. “I can tell you’re starting to dismiss me as a threat. Be honest, you’re not taking me seriously right now, are you?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“See? This is why we need to raise the stakes! Our interactions have lost all dramatic tension, that spark that made us such perfect enemies has vanished.”

“That’s pretty gay.” Chaeyoung commented, quickly looking away when Nayeon glared at her.

“Hey babe.” Tzuyu smiled softly at Chaeyoung. “Sorry about all this, it’ll be over quick.”

“Just pay for dinner tonight and we’ll call it even.” Chaeyoung’s smile was equally as soft.

Nayeon coughed pointedly, bringing the attention back to her.

“I won’t just hand her over Tzuyu. You’ll have to fight me, and I’m warning you now, I-”

“You want dramatic tension, right?” Tzuyu interrupted her. “There’s a new supervillain on the loose, and the police have been unable to catch them. I’ve been trying to help them all day, but the fucker’s got some kind of invisibility. They’ve been wreaking havoc all over my city and I don’t even know what they look like. I am tired, hungry, and I just want to cuddle with my girlfriend. So, if you don’t give Chaeyoung back right now, I will beat you so hard you’ll end up in a hospital instead of a jail cell, and then I’ll break your stupid Time Stick so that you will never be able to bother us again. Understand?”

“It’s called a reversal light, you _know_ it’s called a reversal light. It’s a wand with a light on the end, not a stick!”

“Do. You. Understand?”

Nayeon sighed. Tzuyu clearly wasn’t in the mood to indulge her, and she looked as annoyed as she did when Nayeon caused massive damage to public property. Pouting, she reached forward and untied Chaeyoung.

“Just this once.”

Tzuyu didn’t even give her a snappy comeback, she just picked Chaeyoung up and walked out. Frowning, Nayeon was left feeling very disappointed. She’d been hoping for a good fight, maybe even a battle that would last days. This mystery villain had ruined everything for her.

Maybe…this newbie could find a way to make it up to Nayeon.

Nayeon smiled to herself, an idea beginning to form in her mind.

* * *

“All units, bank robbery in progress on Sogong-ro. Suspect appears to be the same invisible individual that’s been targeting stores all day. Hulk is unavailable to help at the moment, repeat, Hulk will not be able to help.”

After an hour of sitting in her car listening to a stolen police scanner, Nayeon finally perked up as an interesting incident was finally reported. She quickly clicked her reversal light, rewinding time as far back as she could, and then she stomped down on the acceleration pedal. Giving herself a head start was always the smart thing to do.

Two minutes was as far back as she could go, so by the time she arrived at the bank the police were already investigating. It took a couple of rewinds for her to find a safe place to park, and another few before she slipped into the building without getting caught.

Fourteen, to be precise. One policeman was annoyingly perceptive no matter how many different angles she used to sneak past him.

Next step: catching someone invisible.

The bank had been emptied out by the police, hoping that by monitoring who left they could trap the invisible robber inside. Considering how Nayeon had sneaked past them without being invisible, their strategy wasn’t that great. She wasn’t complaining though, because the emptiness worked perfectly for her own plan.

She went left first, running up and down the bank while flailing her arms as widely as possible. When the two minutes were almost up, and she hadn’t made contact with any invisible stranger, she rewound time and turned right instead.

She made it all the way to the fire exit without finding anyone. All this running around was starting to tire her out, so she opened the door and stuck her head outside for a quick breath of fresh air.

As she pushed the door open, she felt it bump into something. Someone shrieked, and then there was the sound of a thud. Nayeon poked her head around the door, gaping at what she saw.

Lying on the concrete was a girl about her age. She was staring up at Nayeon with wide, startled eyes, and there was empty space where her left arm and leg should be. It looked like Nayeon had found her supervillain and shocked her into partial visibility.

Nayeon hadn’t really planned too far after finding the invisible robber, but one look at this girl’s face and she knew that she definitely wasn’t handing her over to the police. This girl was far too pretty to be rotting in a jail cell.

“Hey there gorgeous.” Nayeon grinned. “Wanna get out of here?”

The girl looked even more confused, but Nayeon could see the glint of calculating sharpness in her eyes. After a moment she extended her hand and let Nayeon pull her up.

“You can get us past the police?”

“You’re not the only one in this city with a nifty magic trick. Stick with me, and soon we’ll be sipping wine and counting that stash you robbed, in a five star hotel hidden well away from the eyes of the law.”

“Oooh, that almost sounds like a date.” Fuck, the girl was even cuter when she smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t go out with people who won’t give me a name. It’s my policy to weed out the creeps.”

“Nayeon.” she smirked. “And I don’t usually go on dates with bank robbers, but if you want I’m happy to make an exception.”

“My name is Sana.” Sana winked and Nayeon felt her heartbeat start to race.

Surely that level of cuteness was far more illegal than whatever burglary Sana was currently committing. Nayeon almost wanted to say a cheesy line, but she didn’t want to ruin the cool rescuer image she’d accidentally stumbled into.

“Nice to meet you Sana.” Nayeon held her hand, guiding her carefully around the side of the bank. “How would you feel about becoming partners in crime?”

“Only in crime?”

Nayeon laughed, then immediately rewound time so that she just smiled in response. Couldn’t be too loud or the perimeter guards would hear.

“Maybe. Maybe more. Either way, I think we’re going to have fun together, don’t you?”


	2. First Date

“So,” Nayeon took a sip from her glass of wine. “What’s your story, Minatozaki Sana? I can tell you’re not from around here, so how did you end up robbing one of the biggest banks in Korea?”

Fun fact: Nayeon was not a fan of wine. She preferred cocktails, but in the spur of the moment she’d told Sana that they’d end up drinking wine, and now it was too late to go back on her word. She choked down another sip, managing not to grimace. At least wine fit the rich conwoman aesthetic she currently had going on.

Sitting on the armchair opposite her, wrapped in a fluffy hotel bathrobe, Sana paused from counting her bundles of cash to grin at Nayeon.

“Well I came to Seoul from Japan for a holiday, but one thing led to another and here we are.”

“Mm hmm.” Nayeon put her wine glass down and raised an eyebrow. “You know, I haven’t asked for a cut of your stash yet. Anyone normal would be suspicious about my intentions, yet you felt comfortable enough taking a shower with me in the next room?”

“I was kind of hoping you’d join me, but hey.” Sana winked, and damn it Nayeon’s heart fluttered a little. “It definitely proved to me that you weren’t a creep.”

Sana ran a hand through her long brown hair, scooping it up into a ponytail. Droplets of water were still slowly trickling down her neck, and Nayeon took a moment to enjoy the view before getting back to business.

“You still don’t know why I’m here though.”

“Sure I do.” Sana twirled her wet hair into a bun. “You want to hang out and get to know me, right?”

“That…” Nayeon paused. “Yeah actually, I think that’s exactly why I’m here.”

“Great!” Sana beamed. “I actually came to Korea looking for a partner like you, but I didn’t think I’d run into her on my first day!”

“Alright, now I’m really curious.” Nayeon leant forward. “You can’t say stuff like that and not expect me to ask what you’re doing here. Why did you come to Korea?”

“You want my life story?” Sana gave yet another flirtatious grin, and Nayeon was glad the alcohol hid how red her cheeks were. “I’ll give you mine if you give me yours.”

“You’re relentless, aren’t you?”

“Trust me, I could be a lot worse. After all partner…” Sana deliberately and slowly pulled down the collar of her robe, and Nayeon’s eyes were automatically drawn to the thumb tracing over the top of Sana’s cleavage. “You _did_ say you wanted to get to know me.”

Nayeon gulped. From the beginning she’d sort of been winging this whole thing, but Sana was… a lot. Nayeon felt like she was playing a game of chicken, where both of them kept upping the flirting, and neither of them was willing to laugh it off.

“We can definitely do that.” She winced at how squeaky her voice sounded. “But I don’t sleep with strangers, so let’s chat first.”

“Sure.” Sana stretched out on the chair, her robe thankfully back in it’s rightful place. “You want my supervillain origin story, right? It’s kind of terrible though.”

“Can’t be any worse than mine.”

“You sure?” Sana sighed. “Because the truth is, up until today I wasn’t a bad guy. I was a superhero actually, one of Japan’s finest three.”

“So what happened?”

“My two best friends started dating.”

That… wasn’t what Nayeon had expected. Sana didn’t seem like the type who would let that bother her, but she’d only known the girl a few hours so hey, she probably had layers.

Sana smiled at her expression, and for the first time she seemed a bit sad.

“It was fine at first. We were still the Trinity, travelling around the country saving whoever needed help. But they just kept getting closer, and I started to feel more and more like a third wheel. With Mina it was ok, because she was pretty introverted to begin with, and I hadn’t known her for too long. But Momo’s been my best friend since we were kids, so for her to start pulling away just because she had a girlfriend… it hurt. On top of that, I started to really hate my power. It was the least useful for fighting villains compared to super speed and hypnotism. Also, the irony of the invisible girl feeling like her friends were ignoring her? Not lost on me. I was in pretty bad state for a month or so, and two days ago I snapped and decided that I needed a vacation.”

For some reason, images of Jihyo and Jeongyeon started flashing through Nayeon’s mind. The situation wasn’t exactly the same, neither of her best friends had superpowers, and Nayeon hadn’t exactly felt neglected when they got together. Their dynamic had shifted a bit though, so she could relate somewhat to Sana’s sadness.

“So, there I was in the Incheon airport, wondering about whether I should get a taxi or a bus, and I saw this really nice pair of sunglasses. I went in to buy it, but I couldn’t afford it. Then I realised that I could, technically, just take them. The only thing stopping me was the fact that I was a ‘good guy’, and I suddenly decided that I was sick of being a sweet, selfless hero. So I took the glasses, and then one thing led to another and now here we are.”

“Bit of a leap there, from shoplifting a pair of sunglasses to robbing a bank.”

“I may have gone a little wild once I realised what I could do when I wasn’t following the law.” Sana smiled sheepishly. “I got really giddy about using my powers for something other than trying to sneak up on bad guys and then getting hit in the face. Plus, the police were so incompetent it started to get funny, and the hero they sent after me was really cute.”

“Hey, I’m not judging.” Nayeon chuckled. “Like I said, my own origin story isn’t that great.”

“Are you being nice because you feel sorry for me? Because if your story is actually cool then-”

“Someone told me I laughed like a supervillain and I got inspired.”

Sana stared at her. Nayeon reached for the wine.

“There’s more too it than that, obviously.” She took a huge gulp, not bothering to hide her grimace. “But that’s partly where it started.”

“I’m listening.” Sana had that sharp glint in her eyes again, and the room was starting to grow a little more serious.

“Like you, I have two really close friends, Jihyo and Jeongyeon. They started dating, but that’s not what set me down this path. The superhero that was chasing you all day? Her name is Tzuyu, and I’ve known her since we were kids. We were all at a summer camp together, and at the end of the camp there was a prize for whoever was ‘Queen of the castle’. At the end of every day someone could challenge the current queen, and the duel could be anything from singing and dancing to playing hopscotch. Sometimes there was a clear winner and other times the counsellors would decide who earned the throne. Jihyo had kept the title of queen for a whole week, but on the very last night of camp Tzuyu challenged her to a game of rock paper scissors. She won, Jihyo was really upset, and everyone went home sad except for Tzuyu. Jihyo forgave her after a month, but I still remember her pain. So, when Tzuyu became an official superhero, I decided to become her main enemy.”

Sana was looking at her with big wide eyes. Nayeon felt like she’d probably made the whole thing sound a little too dramatic.

“I should probably mention that Tzuyu was twelve and the prize for being queen was a plastic gold crown that you could buy at the dollar store.”

“It was still mean.”

“I agree, but most people seem to think that holding a grudge this long is silly.”

“Well I’m not most people.” The way Sana licked her lips made Nayeon’s mind go to very strange places. “And I know that there’s more to it than that, right?”

Despite her flirting and breezy attitude, there was an undercurrent of perceptiveness to Sana that warned Nayeon not to underestimate her. They were partners now, but if this didn’t end well Sana was not the kind of person she’d want as an enemy.

Hot _and_ smart. Nayeon had really hit the jackpot, hadn’t she?

“It is more complicated than just a grudge.” Nayeon admitted. “Were you born with your powers, Sana?”

“Yep!” Sana was back to smiling cutely. “Runs in the family actually. My dad won ‘Japan’s Clumsiest Hero’ title three years in a row. The first time I won it he cried with happiness.”

Nayeon was tempted to ask for more about that, but her phone blasting IU’s newest song distracted her. She held a finger up to Sana, putting her phone on speaker with barely contained glee.

“How’s the most beautiful woman in the world doing today?”

“Nayeon.” She winced at the tone of Jihyo’s voice. “Tzuyu rang.”

“Ugh.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. “I gave her girlfriend back without a fight, she didn’t need to rat me out.”

“You kidnapped Chaeyoung again?”

“She didn’t tell you?” Nayeon frowned.

“No, but we will be talking about that later. I called because the police caught you on tape inside a bank while it was being robbed.”

“Did they now?” She winked at Sana, who was barely containing her giggles. “What a strange coincidence.”

“Nayeon.” Jihyo sighed. “Why did you do it?”

“Well, you’re always telling me that I need a hobby other than bothering Tzuyu, so I made a friend.”

“A friend.” Jihyo sounded rightfully suspicious, but Sana’s pout was so adorable Nayeon felt bad for her. “What kind of friend?”

“A friend who can turn invisible and rob banks and possibly wants to bang me. It’s great, I’m having the time of my life.”

“Oh, she definitely wants to bang you.” Apparently, Sana could only resist flirting for so long. “And if you think you’re having the time of your life _now_ , then you’re in for a treat later.”

“Nayeon, is that her?” Nayeon struggled to answer, because the wolfish grin on Sana’s face was quite the distraction. “Is that the bank robber? What are you two doing now?”

“Relax.” Nayeon answered at last. “We’ll stay out of trouble tonight.”

“Nayeon-”

“We’re still on for dinner tomorrow, right? I’ll bring her over, introduce her to you and Jeongyeon. Trust me, you’ll love her. She’s very charming.”

“Sweet talker.” Sana whispered.

“Got to go Jihyo. Love you, say hi to the wife for me.”

“Are you really-”

Nayeon hung up.

“Introducing me to your friends already?” Sana gave a mock gasp. “You move fast, Im Nayeon.”

“You’re the one who wants sex on a first date.”

“Don’t tell me you aren’t as eager as I am to test out that big double bed.”

“You got me there.” Nayeon smirked. “So, I know your origin story, but there’s still a bit left of mine. Care to hear the rest of it now or later?”

Sana gazed at Nayeon thoughtfully, and then her lips curved up into a slow smirk.

“I can wait. I’ve always been a fan of pillow talk.”

This was the moment of truth, and they could both sense it. Their game of flirting chicken was reaching a climax, and if either of them were going to back down this was the moment. Nayeon knew that sleeping with a criminal she barely knew was not the responsible thing to do, but it would definitely be a story to stun her friends with, and Sana was really, really attractive. Like goddamn. Nayeon had kind of wanted to get her in bed since the moment they met.

Besides, she’d always done her best to be the exact opposite of responsible.

She stood up, walking over to Sana. Sana stared up at her, half curious half giddy, as Nayeon gently ran her fingers down Sana’s face, cupping her chin. Her thumb hovered over Sana’s lip, questioning.

If Sana’s flirting had been just for fun, if this was all just a joke for her, she could turn away right now. If she didn’t actually like Nayeon that way, she could push Nayeon’s hand off her face and that would be that.

Sana arched upwards, wrapping her arms around Nayeon’s neck and tugging her down so that their lips met. Nayeon smirked into the kiss, dragging her teeth gently across Sana’s bottom lip.

It seemed neither of them had been kidding after all.

She tugged Sana over to the bed, shrieking as they tumbled onto it in a heap. Something fell off the table and landed with a crash on the floor, but as Nayeon tugged Sana’s robe off, she couldn’t find it in her to care. She pushed Sana further up the bed, elbowing the lamp off the bedside desk as she went.

Considering how loud Sana’s moans were becoming, as well the pile of broken furniture, they were definitely going to get noise complaints. But that was a problem for later.

“Oh!” Nayeon gasped, as Sana bit gently on her collarbone. “Oh yeah, you are definitely the best partner in crime I’ve ever had.”

“Only in crime?”

“Well that depends.” Nayeon grinned, pushing Sana down towards the pillows. “Exactly how kinky are you?”

Sana’s eyes lit up, and Nayeon knew right there and then that this was going to be a real fun night.


	3. First Family Dinner

“I can’t believe I’m already meeting your friends. The fun never stops with you, does it?”

“You came to Korea to meet cool people, right?” Nayeon knocked on the door of Jihyo and Jeongyeon’s apartment. “You may have found the best partner already, but there’s still some fun to be had.”

Sometimes when Jihyo answered the door, she did it with a big smile on her face, and Nayeon knew everything was going to be easy. Sometimes, she answered it with a solemn look, and that meant Nayeon was probably in for a lecture. Today, she answered it with a neutral look of mild apprehension, which meant that she didn’t quite like what was happening, but she would reserve judgement until after dinner.

Honestly, it was the best option Nayeon could have hoped for. As usual, she gave Jihyo a huge grin.

“Hello lesbians! I heard we were having chicken today.”

“Nayeon.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. “You’re the only lesbian here.”

“Not anymore!” Nayeon tugged Sana into view, who waved politely at Jihyo. “Meet Sana! She’s just as gay as I am, which means I finally have someone to stare knowingly at when you and Jeongyeon talk boys.”

“Yes, because that happens so often.” Jihyo stepped aside to let them walk in. “Jeong and I are literally married, so I assure you Sana, very little talk about boys happens in this household. Just because I’m bi-”

Jihyo froze as Sana stepped closer. Sana blinked cluelessly at her, and Nayeon frowned at Jihyo’s gaping. Sana was super pretty, but this reaction was over the top even for Jihyo.

“Oh my god. You’re Sana.”

“I just told you her name?” Nayeon was very confused.

“No, I mean you’re _the_ Sana. Of the Trinity. The famous Trio of Japanese superheroes?”

“Aw babe.” Nayeon smiled. “I didn’t realise you were so famous.”

“Well I don’t like to brag,” Sana winked. “but I am pretty popular. I was a little surprised you didn’t recognize me.”

“Don’t be.” Jihyo recovered enough to start walking again, and the three of them moved to the living room. “Nayeon basically lives under a rock. If it’s not related to making Tzuyu’s life harder then she’s not interested.”

“To be honest.” A new voice spoke up. “I’m kind of happy she found you. We were starting to get worried about her intentions.”

“Jeongyeon.” Nayeon glared at her friend. “My intentions for Tzuyu have always been strictly evil.”

“Is that so?” Jeongyeon handed everyone drinks, and Nayeon took a delighted sip of her vodka coke, finally able to enjoy alcohol that wasn’t wine. “What about that time when-”

“Dinner’s almost ready!” Jihyo clapped her hands together brightly. “I hope you guys are hungry, because we cooked a lot!”

“I think we’re both pretty famished.” Nayeon looked at Sana, who nodded.

“We decided to skip lunch.” Sana explained. “Breakfast was just too filling.”

The way Sana said that last part, combined the wink she threw at Nayeon, made Jeongyeon choke on her drink. Nayeon grinned proudly, wrapping her arm around Sana’s shoulders.

“I told you she was charming.”

“I’m only kidding.” Sana giggled. “We really did have a full breakfast; the room service was great.”

Jeongyeon and Jihyo relaxed, foolishly letting their guards down. Nayeon hid her smirk behind her glass, anticipating what would come next.

“Last night on the other hand… well we didn’t have much dinner, but the desert was amazing. Nayeon got so creative with the whipped cream, it really blew my mind.”

Jihyo’s eyes got wider, Jeongyeon coughed out her drink again, and Nayeon burst out laughing. This was shaping up to be one of the best dinners she’d had in a long while.

“So,” Jihyo cleared her throat, tactfully moving past the implications of what Sana had just said. “Would you like to sit down? I’ll bring out the food.”

Sana decided to take pity on them and let Nayeon steer her towards the table without any more innuendos. The three of them sat down while Jihyo went to dish out the plates, and Sana ran her hand along Nayeon’s thigh under the table. Nayeon shivered and caught Jeongyeon’s eye, relishing her friend’s forced smile.

“So Sana,” Jeongyeon said, powering through her uncomfortableness admirably. “Jihyo tells me you two have been bank robbing together. I’m surprised to see you’ve gone from hero to villain. Being friends with Nayeon means we’re not exactly in a position to judge, but I’m curious what drove you to make that change?”

“It was sort of an impulsive thing.” Sana glanced over to Nayeon and smiled. “But so far I don’t regret it. Meeting Nayeon made the decision worth it.”

See the thing is, from anyone else that would have just been a throwaway cheesy line. But Sana made it sound so sincere that Nayeon couldn’t help but duck her head and blush. The logical part of her brain kept pointing out that they’d only known each other for two days, but ignoring her logical side was one of Nayeon’s many talents. Sana was too much fun for Nayeon to start doubting. She’d wait until the whirlwind ended before she considered regretting it.

“Well, I’m glad.” Jeongyeon paused. “I think. I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that there’s a famous superhero sitting in our dining room. It’s just so…what the hell? You know?”

“She’s almost speechless.” Nayeon marvelled. “Great work babe. Jeongyeon’s much less annoying this way.”

Jeongyeon threw her napkin at Nayeon, just as Jihyo handed everyone their plates. Jihyo glared at Jeongyeon, and Nayeon smugly stuck her tongue out once Jihyo turned away from her.

Nayeon’s heart felt warmer when she noticed Sana watching all of this with an amused expression. As much as they joked around, Nayeon didn’t know what she would have done if Sana had been uncomfortable around her closest friends.

They started eating, and Jihyo looked delighted at the loud sounds of approval everyone made while tucking in. For a minute or two, the conversation become strictly about the food. Nayeon passed dishes left and right as requested, filling up her plate with a little bit of everything.

Then Sana moved closer with a devilish grin, and Nayeon leant in eagerly.

“What tastes better, me or this food?” Sana asked, in a terrible attempt at a whisper.

With the amount of times Jeongyeon was spitting out her drink, Nayeon was slightly worried that they’d actually end up killing her.

“Behave.” Nayeon struggled not to laugh.

“Or what? You’ll spank me?”

This time Nayeon couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. Jeongyeon’s face was just too red, and Sana was entirely unrepentant.

“How are you all liking the chicken?” Jihyo said loudly. “Jeongyeon suggested I add extra ginger to the sauce! Is everyone finding that alright?”

Everyone agreed that the chicken was lovely, and after a few more laughs they soon moved back towards regular conversation topics. They talked about Jeongyeon’s job at the bakery, Jihyo’s current gig in a musical, and Nayeon’s latest kidnapping attempt.

“Poor Chaeyoung.” Jihyo sighed. “Honestly, it’s a miracle she and Tzuyu are still together. I wouldn’t blame anyone for breaking up with Tzuyu considering the strain you put on her relationships.”

“It’s fine. They’re in love.” Nayeon flicked her hand dismissively, ignoring Jihyo’s disapproving glare. “I think Chaeyoung has just grown to accept me as that wacky older cousin-in-law she can’t escape.”

“Is she cute?”

Of course Sana would ask that. Nayeon watched with a smile as Jeongyeon handed Sana her phone, and Sana oohed and aahed at the photos of Chaeyoung.

“Oh she’s pretty. Why does she have orange hair? Is she an idol?”

“No, she’s just gay and artistic. When I saw her yesterday she’d already dyed it back to black.”

“Really?” Jihyo looked curious. “What made her change it again?”

“I don’t know.” Nayeon shrugged. “Tzuyu rudely interrupted us before we could have a proper conversation.”

Jeongyeon and Jihyo shot her matching deadpan stares. Sana laughed, and it sounded like music to Nayeon’s ears. Like a windchime or something.

Look, poetry wasn’t Nayeon’s thing, but it was a really pretty laugh, ok? Chaeyoung would probably know just what kind of flowery language Nayeon was searching for to describe it. Maybe Nayeon would get Chaeyoung to write something about Sana next time she kidnapped the kid.

Shit, Nayeon was really starting to catch feelings, wasn’t she?

* * *

Jeongyeon found her staring in the bathroom mirror after dinner. She nudged Nayeon to the side so she could wash her hands, and Nayeon scooted over without complaint.

“I can’t tell if Sana’s flirting with Jihyo right now or just giving her compliments to be nice.” Jeongyeon said. “She told us that last night she was curious, but now she agrees with you about Jihyo being the most beautiful woman in the world. Should I feel threatened?”

“Do you feel threatened?”

“Nah. I’m pretty secure in my marriage. I’m still just amazed you actually found someone who can tolerate you.”

“I think I’m in love.”

Jeongyeon laughed, turning off the tap and drying her hands. Then she looked up, and she stopped laughing once she realised Nayeon wasn’t even smiling.

“Holy shit, are you serious?”

“Maybe? I don’t know!” Nayeon sighed. “It’s just… I woke up before her this morning, right? And she looked so fucking sexy with her hair all messy. But then one minute later she woke up, and she let out this adorable giggle. She went from sexy to cute in a second Jeongyeon, _in a second!_ I’m still shaken.”

“So what you’re saying is, you’re shooketh?”

“Stop quoting vines at me for once in your fucking life! This is serious!”

“I know, I just-” Jeongyeon froze. “Wait, you woke up together? Nayeon, did you actually sleep with her?”

“What?” Nayeon frowned. “Of course I did. We’ve been joking about that all afternoon.”

“I didn’t realise you were serious!” Nayeon was taken aback by Jeongyeon’s panic. “Nayeon, you’ve known this girl for two days! She’s a world famous superhero! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Really?” Nayeon gaped. “I’m a freaking supervillain who regularly commits crime, but _this_ is where you draw the line?”

“What? No! I didn’t mean it like that.” Jeongyeon sighed. “It’s just… I don’t want you to get hurt. You and Sana are moving a lot faster than your usual pace, and you just told me you’re in love, so yeah, I’m a little worried about you right now.”

“I told you that I _think_ I’m in love. There’s a big difference.”

“Sure.” Jeongyeon rolled her eyes, but the tension in the room had cleared. “At least her moral code seems to be as thin and wishy washy as yours.”

“I’m probably just giddy.” Nayeon decided. “This is the first relationship I’ve had in a while, so I’m enjoying every moment.”

“Fair enough. Maybe you just need to break out of the honeymoon phase, and then you’ll figure out how you really feel.” Nayeon did not like the look of Jeongyeon’s smirk. “You know, I think I still have that video of you singing I’m Gonna Be A Star lying around somewhere. If she’s still into you after watching that, then you know you’ve got a keeper.”

“Why do you hate me?” Nayeon asked her. “Do you get personal joy out of my status as the single friend, is that it? Can you just not stand to see me move on from being your third wheel?”

Jeongyeon laughed, and this time Nayeon grinned back. They made their way out to the living room, where Jihyo was telling Sana a story Nayeon really wished they would all forget.

“So I ran up to her and started whacking her with this plastic hammer, and Nayeon just stands there in the middle of the cafeteria yelling ‘You can’t hit me! You’re just a freshman!’ So I yelled back ‘Watch me, bitch!’ and kept hitting her. And that was the last time Nayeon ever tried to take my garlic bread.”

Sana laughed, and Nayeon smiled despite her embarrassment. Something about Sana’s happiness was just too contagious for Nayeon to properly sulk at Jihyo’s betrayal.

“That’s a fairly accurate way to describe our high school years.” Jeongyeon chimed in. “Nayeon and Jihyo fighting like cats and dogs, while I watched from the side lines, stuck in the middle.”

“Stuck in the middle?” Nayeon scoffed. “Please, you were just as scrappy as the two of us, and when you weren’t involved you always sided with Jihyo in the end.”

“Well yes. That’s because I was smart, and you were usually in the wrong.”

“Wow.” Nayeon put her hand to her chest in mock hurt. “After all we’ve been through together, you turn on me like this? Don’t forget I had you first!”

“Oh?” Sana seemed thoroughly engrossed in the banter between them. “You two dated?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“She proposed to me then broke it off after two weeks.”

“We were ten and all I did was offer to share my Haribos with you.” Jeongyeon protested. “You took a jelly ring then told everyone we were engaged, and I was too embarrassed to deny it. I only snapped after two weeks when you started handing out wedding invitations.”

“Huh.” Nayeon frowned thoughtfully. “You and I remember our childhood very differently.”

Jihyo’s phone pinged, thankfully distracting everyone before Jeongyeon snapped again. She took it out and read the text, then looked up at Nayeon with wide eyes.

“It’s Dahyun, she says to check the news. Apparently you're a big story tonight.”

“Kim Dahyun? Tzuyu’s friend? Why does she care about me?”

“She knows we’re close, even if she doesn’t understand why. Switch the TV on, will you?”

Nayeon hit the power button, right in time for the evening news to pop up. The announcer took up most of the screen, but a blurry photo of Nayeon and Sana taken outside the bank was displayed in the top right corner.

“And now, in today’s top story. Authorities have finally identified the mysterious accomplice aiding known supervillain Im Nayeon in her latest crime spree. The suspect, who has been identified as the Japanese superhero Sana, was caught on tape using her powers alongside Im Nayeon to assist in the robbery of the Bank of Korea. Police are now linking her to multiple other ‘invisible thefts’ that have occurred since she arrived in Seoul. Her motivations are currently unknown, but while the investigation is ongoing, police have already issued a warrant for her arrest. If you see either of these women, please contact your local law enforcement immediately.”

The picture on the screen changed, showing an oddly cheerful family outside a burning building.

“In happier news, what could have been a horrible tragedy turned into a miracle as the Hulk rescued every adult, child, and pet from an apartment building that caught fire in Gangnam district. Here’s the heart-warming footage, recorded live at the scene.”

Nayeon switched the television off before Tzuyu’s face could be shown. Jihyo and Jeongyeon wore their usual ‘Nayeon made the news’ disappointed faces, but Sana was just staring blankly at the black screen. Nayeon went over to her and sat down, rubbing her hand up and down Sana’s bare arm.

“This is your first arrest warrant, isn’t it? How do you feel?”

“I’m not sure.” Sana mumbled. “It’s kind of scary, like it’s the point of no return. I can’t just go back to being a hero if I wanted to anymore. But at the same time… it’s kind of cool?”

Nayeon grinned, ignoring Jihyo and Jeongyeon’s synchronized sighs of despair. Nayeon could tell that they’d been hoping Sana would be something of a good influence on her. Fools, part of the reason Nayeon liked Sana so much was that she was such a wonderfully bad influence.

“It’s very cool.” Nayeon agreed. “Grand larceny is a much better arrest warrant then my first one.”

“I remember that! You got arrested for reckless driving, right?” Jihyo shook her head and laughed. “You weren’t even drunk at the time, you were just a shitty driver.”

“That asshole in the huge jeep was the one hogging the whole road, but apparently it’s my fault that he forced me to swerve in and out of three lanes and break the speed limit just to get past him!”

Sana laughed, but it was slightly less genuine then her usual bright giggle. Nayeon rubbed Sana’s back and thought about everything they had yet to say to each other. They never did get to have that pillow talk last night, but maybe tonight they wouldn’t be so exhausted once they settled down. Nayeon would like to think that she wore Sana’s stamina down purely through her talent in bed, but it had probably been a combination of that and the very eventful day they’d had. Today had been much calmer, so while Nayeon was sure the sex would be just as wild as last night, Sana would hopefully not conk out straight afterwards.

“Hey!” She sat up suddenly, grinning with excitement. “Thanks to the news we’re officially partners now! Know what that means?”

Sana shook her head, curious.

“Tzuyu’s going to find out!” Nayeon beamed. “She’s going to realise I’m not working alone anymore, and soon she’ll have to face the two of us!”

“Oh, that is cool!” Sana grinned, and Nayeon was relieved to see her sunny smile wasn’t dimmed anymore. “I get to meet more of your friends! Do you think she’ll like me?

“Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s going to hate you.” Nayeon said gleefully. “And it’s going to be so beautiful, I might actually cry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by far the quickest update pace I've ever had with a fic.  
> Sorry to anyone who hates seeing this story in the tag sfslkjsldfh. I just gotta get it out before the procrastination hits.


	4. First Confrontation

Sana had left soon after the broadcast. She’d started worrying about the money, and while Nayeon assured her that there was no way the police could track them, Sana didn’t seem convinced. Nayeon assumed Sana’s disbelief came from the faces Jihyo and Jeongyeon made when she tried to guarantee the security of their hideout.

She loved her friends, truly, but would it kill them to let her live? Just once? Nayeon couldn’t make a single cocky statement around those two, because they’d lock onto it and rip her ego to shreds. She was pretty sure their chat after dinner had ruined any chance of her still being a slick, badass, saviour in Sana’s eyes.

Despite the destruction of her cool first impression, Sana’s eyes still sparkled every time she looked at her. Nayeon didn’t quite know what to make of that.

She offered to go with Sana back to the hotel, but Sana shook her head with a smile.

“I can tell you want to hang out with your friends for a bit longer. It’s ok, I promise I won’t get caught. I’ll just make sure the money’s still in the safe and maybe steal a few toys for us to try tonight.”

She leant forward and gave Nayeon a peck on the lips, then winked and walked out the front door. Nayeon was left standing there, staring at the wall like a complete idiot.

It wasn’t the sex talk that made her blank out, she was used to that from Sana and could give as good as she got. What made her heart start to stutter was how adorably domestic the whole goodbye had felt.

_Two days._ Nayeon reminded herself. _You’ve known her for two days._

She shut the door and walked back into the living room. Jeongyeon and Jihyo were sitting calmly on the sofa, and Nayeon felt a twist of anxiety in her gut.

She told herself very firmly that she did _not_ feel like a teenager bringing a girlfriend home to meet her parents. She was older than both of them, so she had no idea why her brain had offered her that metaphor. Her friends already disapproved of her career as a supervillain, so what they thought of the girls she brought over shouldn’t matter that much to her.

“So what do you think?” she blurted out. “Of Sana, I mean. Obviously. Not that I care, it’s just-”

“I like her.” Jihyo said, and Jeongyeon nodded in agreement.

Nayeon let out a sigh of relief, the tension in her stomach fading. She flopped down onto the armchair opposite them, kicking her feet up onto the coffee table.

“Well, knowing you two, it’s not that simple. But I’m glad you don’t disapprove completely.”

The worried look they gave each other pretty much proved Nayeon’s point, but she stayed quiet and waited for them to say whatever was on their minds.

“I’m glad that you found a partner and that you’re happy.” Jeongyeon began carefully. “It’s just… we were hoping that if you settled down with someone you’d quit with the whole ‘Tzuyu’s archnemesis’ thing.”

“We were expecting you to find someone who’d encourage you to be better.” Jihyo continued. “But seeing how you two met while Sana was in the middle of robbing a bank, it doesn’t seem like she’s the kind of girlfriend who’ll try and push you away from being a criminal. Also, are you sure she’s not an evil clone of the superhero Sana? Because I’m really struggling to adjust to the whole ‘beloved hero is suddenly in cahoots with Nayeon and happy to do bad things together.’”

“Ok.” Nayeon pointed dramatically at them. “First of all, I’m going to skip the joke about what sort of bad things we get up to, so I hope you both appreciate that. Secondly, Sana’s not a clone, she was just in the mood to change her lifestyle, and I was happy to help. Thirdly, we have yet to label ourselves, so don’t call her my girlfriend until I know she’s fine with it. And finally, are we really going to rehash this same argument every time I come over?”

“It’s just that you have so much potential.” Jeongyeon stared pleadingly at her. “You could be doing such great things with your life.”

Apparently, they were going to have this conversation yet again. Nayeon sighed, slouching further down into the armchair.

“And I told you both countless times, it’s my power so it’s my choice. You don’t have to like what I do, but you have to respect that it’s my decision.”

“We do respect that.” Jeongyeon insisted. “But you can’t blame us for feeling a little disappointed. We don’t understand why you chose to go after Tzuyu when you created your Time Stick. Jihyo got over the camp incident years ago, so for you to dedicate your life to this grudge is worrying.”

“I’m not dedicating my life to it.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Also call it a Time Stick again and I’m writing you out of my will.”

Jeongyeon rolled her eyes and shared another look with Jihyo. Nayeon crossed her arms and prepared herself for round two.

“Why did you kidnap Chaeyoung yesterday?”

“To lure Tzuyu out into a fight.”

“And why did you set up that obstacle course full of riddles last week?”

“Because I thought it would be fun to see Tzuyu fail at solving all my carefully crafted puzzles.”

“And the heist you pulled off the week before that?”

“To get the necessary equipment for the obstacle course, duh.”

“Right.” Jihyo nodded sarcastically. “Not dedicated at all. It’s not as if your purpose in life revolves around being a pain in the ass to a nice kid just trying to help people, that would be insane.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Nayeon.” Jeongyeon’s face was too serious. “You’ve been at this for over a year now, and you still haven’t given us a good reason as to why you became a supervillain. When are you going to tell us the truth?”

“I gave you all the truth that’s relevant. You’re entitled to your opinions, but I happen to be perfectly happy with my life choices.” She clapped her hands. “And with that, we finish our ‘pressure Nayeon into choosing a different path in life’ section of the evening. Time to move on to our next topic!”

“Fine.” Jeongyeon sat up straight, a challenge in her eyes. “If you won’t talk about that, then let’s talk about Sana, and how you think you’re in love with her.”

Shit. Nayeon had walked straight into that one. There was a beat of silence, and then she winced as Jihyo exploded.

“Nayeon thinks _what_? She’s in love? It’s been two days!”

“That’s what I said!”

Nayeon shrank down even further into the armchair, listening with red cheeks as Jihyo and Jeongyeon continued to laugh themselves sick.

“She can’t even call Sana her girlfriend but she thinks she’s in love?”

“It’s Nayeon, emotional stability was never really her thing, was it? Let’s just hope she doesn’t start planning a shotgun wedding.”

“Can you imagine? ‘ _Hey Sana, I don’t know what label we should use, and girlfriend seems so basic. How about I call you my wife?_ ’”

“ _Sorry babe, I have to postpone the honeymoon. Tzuyu wants to take her girlfriend to a baseball game so I need to kidnap Chaeyoung to ruin her plans.”_

“ _The wedding rings are useful for undercover work, that’s the only reason I have mine. Get off my back Jihyo!”_

“Are you done?” Nayeon asked grumpily. “Have you finished mocking me for finally starting to appreciate the allure of romance?”

“The allure of romance?” Jeongyeon snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“I hate you both.” Nayeon declared.

“No you don’t.”

Jeongyeon wore a smug grin, her eyes shining with mirth. Jihyo’s face was almost as red as Nayeon’s, and she bounced lightly on the sofa, struggling to stop herself from giggling. Nayeon took a moment to enjoy the sight of her friends’ happiness, and despite her embarrassment, she smiled.

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t.”

* * *

When Nayeon got back to the hotel, Sana wasn’t there.

She’d been all prepared to say a smug one liner about the security of the hotel, because despite her friends’ doubts she did, in fact, know how to keep a low profile. The police had yet to find them and the hotel staff had yet to rat them out, so Nayeon felt like she’d earned the right to be a little cocky. But when she arrived at their room, and Sana was nowhere to be found, all her smugness vanished.

For one terrifying minute, Nayeon thought she’d been ditched. Then she opened the safe and found the money right where she’d left it, and she immediately felt guilty for assuming Sana would just up and leave her.

Sana was probably out getting those toys she’d been talking about. Nayeon shouldn’t even be worried about it, since it was obvious Sana could take care of herself. Still, something close to fear kept gnawing at her, and after pacing up and down the room for a few minutes, she flopped down onto the bed and switched on the TV.

“Breaking news! The former superhero Sana has been caught attempting to shoplift from the lingerie store La Perla. Police are currently attempting to surround the shop, while the Hulk has been tasked with taking the fugitive into custody. We’ll keep you updated as the situation unfolds.”

By the time the reporter finished his speech, Nayeon was already on her way out the door.

* * *

La Perla was located in the Shilla Arcade. It was fairly near the hotel, while also not being near enough for anyone to be able to easily follow them. If she was going to risk getting caught, Sana had chosen the best lingerie store possible. Nayeon was weirdly proud of her for that.

She arrived at the arcade and had to rewind twenty times to get past the police. They had this place locked down better than the bank, which was a rather depressing statement to make about the people charged with enforcing the law. It took crawling through a bunch of trees and bushes for Nayeon to finally reach the back entrance, and she almost hoped Sana wasn’t here to see her with mud on her face and twigs in her hair.

She crept out, hugging the wall as she waited for something to happen. Aside from the distant sound of police sirens, the alley she was in now seemed pretty peaceful.

“We have got to stop meeting like this.” a familiar voice purred in her ear.

She jumped and whirled around, just as Sana materialised behind her. Nayeon laughed and hit the grinning girl’s shoulder, ignoring the alarmingly large amount of relief she felt at seeing Sana unharmed.

“Aw, but it’s so fun swooping in to rescue you.”

“Please,” Sana smirked. “I have this completely under control.”

There was a scream and a bang from inside the building. Nayeon could hear the police shouting as they charged inside.

“Did you build a bomb or something?”

“Or something.” Sana smiled proudly. “I needed a distraction, so I improvised.”

Nayeon felt herself fall a little bit more in love with this girl. But now was not the time or the place to think about stuff like that, so she shook her head and focused. Now, Nayeon needed to find a good escape route for them.

“Freeze!” Tzuyu yelled, skidding to a halt behind them.

On second thought, maybe they shouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave.

Sana was looking at her with wide, worried eyes. Nayeon gave her a reassuring smile, then wrapped her arm around Sana’s shoulder and turned them both around to face Tzuyu.

Tzuyu’s face went from angry to annoyed the second she saw Nayeon. Then she noticed the arm wrapped around Sana and her whole body seemed to droop.

“No.” Tzuyu said firmly. “No way. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.”

Oh this was _wonderful_. Tzuyu looked so horrified already, and Nayeon hadn’t even started talking.

“Tzuyu! Just the person I was hoping to run into.” Nayeon stepped closer, hugging Sana tightly. “Have you met my new partner? She’s the best.”

“Hi!” Sana waved brightly.

Tzuyu just stared. Nayeon could see the light in her eyes slowly dimming, and it was a truly delightful sight.

“This isn’t real.” Tzuyu repeated. “This is just a bad dream. There’s no way Nayeon would ever be able to find a partner.”

“Oh but I have.” Nayeon was so very tempted to let out a maniacal cackle. “Your worst nightmare has come true! From now on, you’ll be fighting both of us!”

“Don’t flatter yourself. My worst nightmare is that Chaeyoung suddenly grows taller than me.”

“What?” Sana frowned. “That’s silly. Who wouldn’t want a tall girlfriend?”

“I like giving her piggybacks and twirling her around. Also, who are you again?”

“I’m Sana!” Sana waved again. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Great.” Tzuyu said flatly. “Just great. Because one supervillain in my city clearly wasn’t enough.”

“Your city?” Nayeon scoffed. “Please, I’ve lived here longer than you. These people are under my protection just as much as they’re under yours.”

“If these people are under your protection then why do you regularly terrorize them?”

“Well.” Nayeon grinned. “You got me there.”

Tzuyu looked like she was two seconds away from slamming Nayeon through a wall. With great restraint, she turned her attention back to Sana.

“Bad news Sana; I’m going to have to arrest you for shoplifting. The good news is; you may be a criminal, but there’s no way you’re as annoying as Nayeon.”

“Are you sure about that?” If Nayeon’s grin got any wider her cheeks would start to ache. “Have you heard Sana laugh? She’s got a _beautiful_ laugh.”

Sana gave a shy, high-pitched giggle, and it truly was one of the loveliest sounds Nayeon had ever heard. But as she had expected, Tzuyu’s face screwed up, torn between disgusted and appalled. The sight of it made Nayeon’s love for Sana’s laugh double.

“You see?” Nayeon said, brimming with pride. “She’s just as annoying as I am. In fact, I might even say she’s worse, and we all know how hard it is for me to admit that.”

“You say the sweetest things.” Sana batted her eyelashes, and Nayeon struggled to keep a straight face.

“I hate you.” Tzuyu muttered. “So much. I could snap you in half like a twig right now, and it would be considered justifiable murder.”

“Yeah?” Nayeon challenged. “Look at how skinny I am, anyone could snap me in half. A bodybuilder could snap me in half, one of the policemen over there could snap me in half, your small yet muscular girlfriend could probably do it too. You’re not special Tzuyu.”

“She’s got a point.” Sana chimed in helpfully.

At that moment, Nayeon really thought Tzuyu was going to crack. But the girl just sighed deeply, as if talking to Nayeon for one whole minute had worn her out more than fighting an entire army could.

“Fuck this.” Tzuyu decided. “I’m out.”

She spun on her heel, then paused and turned back around.

“Did you actually manage to steal anything?”

“Nope!” Sana shook her head. “I dropped the bra I wanted when the security guard bumped into me.”

“Good. In that case, get out of here, because I’m going to tell the police you got away.”

“You’re letting us go?” Nayeon gasped. “But we’re criminals! Isn’t it your duty to bring us to justice?”

“Yes, but that would involve spending more time here, and I don’t think I can handle being around you two for ten more seconds. Go be gay somewhere else and leave me alone.”

She walked away then, and Nayeon stood there with her mouth wide open and an awed expression on her face. It took her a moment to actually process what had happened, because this was as close to beating Tzuyu as she’d ever gotten.

“Was that ok?” Sana asked nervously. “I didn’t really flirt with her that much, and I could have made my laugh even higher, but I wasn’t sure-”

“That was amazing.” Nayeon whispered. “ _You_ were amazing.”

She pulled Sana into a passionate kiss, and Sana responded eagerly. She was halfway through pulling off Nayeon’s jacket when they heard Tzuyu’s voice.

“Sorry officers, but they got away! I’ll get them next time.”

“We should probably go.” Sana mumbled, pulling back so that there were a few centimetres between her lips and Nayeon’s.

“Mm hmm.” Nayeon agreed, unable to find actual words with Sana’s face so close to hers.

The journey back to the hotel took twice as long, and there were at least three instances where they almost gave in and ripped each other’s clothes off fully. Nayeon was glad they showed some self-restraint, since she didn’t really fancy getting naked in an empty alleyway or behind some bushes.

She noticed Sana’s phone ringing as they entered their room, but Sana took one look at who was calling and switched it off. Before the screen went dark, Nayeon caught a glimpse of a girl with peach coloured hair styled into space buns. Judging by the worried look on Sana's face, she assumed that was either Momo or Mina, but she decided not to ask about it.

Nayeon was no stranger to choosing to ignore certain parts of reality. If Sana didn’t want to acknowledge her friends calling her, Nayeon wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. One important thing she’d learnt over these past two days was that pretending you had no problems was a lot easier when you had a companion. It couldn’t last forever, but right now Nayeon was determined to keep things as light and fun as possible for both of them.

“So,” she said, breaking the silence. “Do you want to see my main secret base? I’ve got one of those big corkboards and everything.”


	5. First Confession

They snuck out of the hotel wearing matching black bucket hats. Sana didn’t really need to hide her face, since she walked through town completely invisible, but Nayeon appreciated the gesture anyway. Almost as much as she appreciated Sana holding her hand the whole way through the city so that Nayeon would know where she was.

She led Sana down to the Han River. This was probably one of the coolest bases she had, so she really hoped Sana would be impressed. At the riverbank, she went over to a particular tree and pressed down on a specific bump. The tree began to creak as it slowly opened up, revealing a staircase leading down beneath the lake.

“Woah.” Sana sounded as awestruck as Nayeon had hoped. “This is so cool! How long did it take you to build this?”

“For me, time isn’t a problem.” Nayeon replied smugly.

In reality, it had taken her eighteen months and many, many failed attempts. If someone ever dug beneath the Han River, they’d be stunned at the amount of waterlogged secret bases they’d find. Minions who actually knew how to build underwater hideouts were far too hard to come by.

She guided Sana onto the staircase, and watched as she flickered into visibility. The look of amazement on Sana’s face made Nayeon feel…feelings. Happy feelings. Possibly even butterflies in her stomach, but she had always found that metaphor too cheesy.

“I’ve never been inside a secret base before! My base isn’t a secret, and actually it isn’t really a base, just a building. I’m pretty sure we don’t even own it.”

“Some way to treat your finest heroes.” Nayeon laughed. “The more I hear the more I understand why you quit.”

“They tried to give us managers.” Sana’s face screwed up in distaste. “Said that we should stop being so publicly intimate for fear of alienating potential supporters, and that’s a direct quote.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t go through with it.”

“Mina actually told them to fuck off.” Sana smiled at the memory. “It was the first time I ever heard her curse other than when she’s playing videogames. Momo and I were so proud.”

Sana’s face flickered for a second, hints of sadness poking through. Nayeon gulped, relieved when the stairs finally ended and they entered the base.

“This is the one base Tzuyu has never managed to find, so you’re actually the first guest to ever enter it. I’m going to try and give a tour, but it might not be great.”

“Well if it’s really bad, I’m sure we can find other ways to entertain ourselves.”

Sana’s blatant staring at Nayeon’s lips was enough for her to shake off her nervous jitters. Sana had been impressed by everything Nayeon had shown her so far. This girl was a miracle and Nayeon needed to stop doubting her. Just because no one else who spent more than five minutes around Nayeon had ever thought she was cool, didn’t mean that Sana would also start to think that way.

“Well this is the main room.” She waved a hand around at the dark blue walls and light blue floor. “Over here is the corkboard I was telling you about, then there’s the desk for the additional notes to help me plot my schemes. In the corner there’s a piano and in the other corner is one of those old record players, just in case I need some dramatic music while I work. There’s a bunch of beanbags to sit on because I wasn’t bothered getting more chairs. Then on the other side of the room there’s a kitchen set, complete with a fully stocked fridge.”

“All this in one room?” Sana’s eyes looked like they were shining, but that was probably just the fluorescent light reflecting off them. “I could live here forever! How come being a bad guy gives you a better base?”

“Because we don’t follow the laws of capitalism. Or any laws, really. It’s great.”

She noticed Sana looking to the left, and Nayeon smiled once she realised what had caught her attention. A dart board hung on the wall, with a picture of Tzuyu stapled to it.

“You’re so talented!” Sana exclaimed, running her fingers over the five darts stuck in the board. “And this combined with the stalker corkboard gives off really creepy vibes! It’s exactly what I thought a real supervillain base would look like.”

Nayeon decided not to mention that she hadn’t been able to throw a single dart successfully, and had instead just stuck them in the places she thought made her look the most intimidating and evil. She’d sort of regretted it afterwards, because it had been a really nice picture of Tzuyu and Jihyo refused to give her a new copy.

“Part two of the tour is pretty simple. There’s a small room to our right with a TV and a table to eat the food cooked in the kitchen. It’s a good place to relax, but I like the beanbags better.”

Sana took a quick peek into that room, before following Nayeon upstairs.

“And now we come to the main event: the bedroom. Three bedrooms actually, one double, one single and one camp bed. The bathroom’s over there and there’s a large selection of books in the room with the camp bed. That concludes our tour.”

Nayeon spun around to face Sana, not even trying to hide her cheeky grin.

“So, what do you want to do now?”

Sana gave her a lazy smirk, amused by Nayeon’s false innocence.

“I think it’s getting pretty late… Which room has the double bed again?”

“First door on the left.”

Sana slipped inside, tugging Nayeon behind her. Nayeon followed her gladly, still a little astonished that she actually got to be with someone as beautiful as Sana. The phrase ‘get lucky’ had never really felt appropriate to her until now, because boy was she feeling lucky for meeting a girl like this.

Look, she appreciated Sana for a lot of reasons. The great sex was just an added bonus. If this was going to become a regular thing, Nayeon sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

“You know, I’m pretty sure I have some toys tucked away somewhere in there.”

She said this casually, just to watch Sana perk up like a puppy. Sana eagerly pulled her down onto the bed, and the look in her eyes made Nayeon shiver.

“To be honest,” Sana leant down close enough for Nayeon to feel her breath tickle her cheek. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”

* * *

It took a full minute afterwards for Nayeon to regain the use of words. This was most definitely not a complaint.

“Were we better than last night?” she said, once her voice started working again. “Because I feel like we were better than last night, and last night was pretty amazing.”

“I think we were better too.” Sana admitted, still gasping for oxygen. “That thing you did with the chocolate, that was…”

“Yeah.” Nayeon agreed. “It was, wasn’t it?”

The room fell quiet again. Nayeon focused on catching her breath, because the ways Sana could use her tongue were practically illegal.

Heh. Illegal. She was never going to get tired of that joke.

“You know, we still haven’t had that pillow talk you promised.” Sana rolled over to face Nayeon. “Not to be pushy or anything, because I get not wanting to go through every little detail, but if you want to talk I’m still happy to listen.”

Oddly enough, Nayeon did feel like talking. Partly because Sana deserved a bit more information on the girl she was in bed with, and partly because she actually felt safe talking to her.

Yeah, yeah, she’d only known Sana for two days. Whatever, Nayeon’s heart didn’t care about her brain’s logic.

“I guess it all started when I was eighteen.” Nayeon settled herself comfortably against her pillow. “Before that I was a pretty normal teenager, although I stood out from the crowd a bit thanks to my sparkling personality. But one night when I was walking home, I got struck by lightning. And thus, a cliché origin story was born.”

“You survived a lightning strike?” Sana’s eyes were adorably wide. “With no powers? How are you so amazing?”

“Hush.” Nayeon gently pushed Sana’s shoulder, blushing. “Keep being sweet like that and you’ll make me get distracted.”

Sana mimed zipping her lips, a teasing look in her eyes. Nayeon shook her head fondly, but continued.

“After that, everything sort of hit me at once. I can see the universe in ways no one else can, and it was overwhelming as fuck. It took me months just to get a proper grip on reality again.”

Nayeon didn’t like to think of that time, of her mother crying, and her friends trying to get through to her, all while she struggled to ground herself in the timestream she could see around her. Just remembering how helpless she had felt made her get dizzy.

“Getting superpowers was the best thing that ever happened to me, but it was also the most terrifying. There was so much I could do, so much I could change. The knowledge is still inside me, just waiting to be used. If I want to, I can figure out how to see the future, or travel back much further than the reversal light allows.”

“But you didn’t.” Sana said softly.

“I didn’t.” Nayeon agreed with a sigh. “Fate screwed up when it chose to give such amazing power to me. I could go back and stop wars before they start, I could go back to when I was a kid and save my dad from dying in a car crash, I could travel into the future and then find out what I need to do to save the human race. All of these ideas have haunted me, but I’m too scared to do any of them in case it changes who I am now. So much power at my fingertips, and after two years of research the only thing I wasn’t afraid to create was a light that let me travel back two minutes in time. Two minutes was all I was willing to risk, because I’m too much of a coward to ever be a hero.”

She could see in Sana’s eyes that she didn’t agree with Nayeon’s self-assessment, but she stayed quiet to let Nayeon finish.

“Skip forward two years later. I’m twenty, I’ve completed the reversal light, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it. I already knew I wasn’t cut out to be a hero, but being a civilian didn’t seem possible either. Then I heard that Tzuyu had finally started work as an official superhero, and when I laughed Jeongyeon told me that my laugh reminded her of a supervillain’s. It all sort of clicked into place then. If I wasn’t willing to use enough of my power to be a hero, then why not just use the little I allowed myself and do whatever the hell I wanted? At first, I struggled to think of something I really wanted to do, but in the end, I just decided to use my power to annoy Tzuyu as much as possible. It took a year to get myself set up as a proper supervillain, but so far, I’ve yet to feel like it was a bad decision. Especially since it brought me to you.”

Nayeon was hoping her smooth ending would be enough to distract Sana, but although the girl laughed shyly, her eyes remained serious.

“I’m glad you told me your story.” Sana said. “I like that I know about your past and you know about mine. It makes me feel special somehow.”

“I’m glad I told you too.”

“But Nayeon… I don’t think fate made a mistake when it gave you that power. I think it knew exactly what it was doing. Controlling time is a powerful ability that should only be given to someone wise enough not to abuse it.”

“I have abused it.” Nayeon grinned. “I’m a supervillain. I use my power for my own gain.”

“You know what I mean.” Sana rolled her eyes, but she smiled too. “Like you said, you could reshape the reality we live in. It kind of blows my mind thinking of just how powerful you are. Even with just the reversal light, you could kill me right now, then rewind and pretend it never happened.”

Sana reached down to clutch her chest, staring worriedly at Nayeon.

“I didn’t kill you!” Nayeon protested. “I haven’t killed anyone!”

“Really? I think I would have, just once to see what it was like.” Sana shrugged. “But that’s my point. You can do anything and then just rewind it to avoid the consequences, but you don’t use your powers for anything truly evil. From what I’ve seen and heard all you do is annoy Tzuyu and cause mild hassle for the people of this city. Despite your ability and your status as a bad guy, I don’t think anyone in this city is actually scared of you, and that’s a good thing. I’ve fought a lot of evil people, and I can say for sure that you’re the best supervillain I’ve ever met.”

That might have just been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to Nayeon. It may even top the time Jihyo fought for her to be the lead in their primary school musical because _“Nayeon is a star in the making and you all are too blind and deaf to realise it!”._

Nayeon was a master at screwing up. This she could admit. Yet somehow, she never seemed to screw up when it came to finding good friends.

“Shit.” Nayeon sniffed, feeling her eyes well up with tears. “Why do you always have to sound so sincere Sana? I can’t be crying over sappy words, it’ll ruin my reputation.”

“I am sincere.” Sana laughed. “Being careful with time doesn’t make you the bad guy.”

“True, it’s mostly the stealing and the property damage that does it.”

“Exactly.”

They stared at each other for five long seconds. Nayeon wasn’t sure which one of them broke first, but soon both of them were rolling around the bed laughing their heads off. It felt like a weight had been lifted off Nayeon’s chest, and she couldn’t tell if the tears that streamed down her cheeks were from relief, laughter or both.

Either way, Nayeon hadn’t felt this light in a long time.

* * *

“Babe, do you have central heating in this place?”

“Hm?” Nayeon raised her head from where Sana was slowly caressing her hair. “Yeah, I had it installed, but I never figured out how to switch it on.”

“Oh.”

“I can get you another blanket if you want?”

“No, no it’s ok.”

Nayeon snuggled back into her pillow. The bed did feel a lot colder now that they weren’t moving so much.

Five minutes later, she changed her mind. The bed felt like a damn ice cube. She really needed to look into getting better insulation and figuring out the heating manual.

“Sana?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you catching a cold. Do you want to head back to the hotel?”

The sigh of relief from Sana was answer enough.

* * *

Soon they were in a nice warm room, wrapped in fresh snuggly bathrobes. Sana was perched at the end of the bed watching some idol show, while Nayeon lay back against the headboard, her attention on her phone.

“Oh, this girl is really talented! I like her!”

“Haeun? She got eliminated.”

“Seriously?” Sana huffed. “Why are all my favourites gone?”

“Because the general public has no taste, I guess.”

“Ugh.” Sana sighed. “At least Sakura will probably make it.”

Grumpy Sana was incredibly adorable, and it was almost enough to get Nayeon’s attention away from her phone. But there was something she was curious about, and with Sana distracted by the survival show she felt safe enough to look it up.

Using the hotel Wi-Fi, Nayeon ran a quick search for the Trinity. A lot of the results weren’t at all related to Sana, but there was one news article that caught her attention. Dated two weeks ago, it described the battle that occurred between the Trinity and an evil sorcerer trying to destroy Tokyo. Most of the article was focused explaining how they’d defeated him, and it was only the end part that caught Nayeon’s interest.

‘ _Afterwards, we attempted to get a statement from the Trinity. However, Momo and Sana were both too overjoyed from their victory that they just jumped around in a circle cheering and screaming. Mina, the youngest of the Trinity, did attempt to give a statement, but we were unable to hear her over the loud antics of her fellow heroes.”_

Below that was a photo taken at the scene. Sana was holding hands with the girl Nayeon had seen on her phone, while in the background a third girl with shoulder length dark hair smiled at them. They all looked so happy, especially Sana with her face caught mid victory cheer.

Nayeon felt a lump in her throat. That photo had been taken two weeks ago, and Sana had told her that she’d been in a bad state for a month or so. If she was that good at concealing her emotions… was she really happy to be here with Nayeon?

“Sana?” Nayeon tried to keep calm as Sana turned around to face her. “Are you happy here? With me? You’re not just hanging out with me because you feel like you owe me for rescuing you at the bank, right? Because if that’s the case I swear you don’t owe me anything, I just want you to have a good time.”

Sana smiled gently at her, and Nayeon felt like an idiot for letting her fear get the better of her. She hadn’t meant to say any of that out loud.

“Hey.” Sana said calmly. “Look at me.”

Nayeon did, and Sana crawled up the bed so that they were eye to eye.

“I’m very happy to be here with you.” She told Nayeon firmly. “I promise to tell you if anything’s wrong, but right now this is the best I’ve felt in a long time. _You_ are the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

“How long?” Nayeon couldn’t help but ask.

“Months?” Nayeon saw pain cloud Sana’s eyes for a moment, and once again she regretted opening her mouth. “Maybe even a year. To tell you the truth I’m not entirely sure.”

“I’m sorry.” Nayeon mumbled.

“Don’t be!” Sana said, her voice deliberately bright. “Let’s just forget about the bad, and focus on the good. What do you normally do to cheer yourself up when you’re feeling down?”

“To cheer up?” Nayeon hummed thoughtfully. “I would probably kidnap one of Tzuyu’s friends. That’s always fun.”

“Ooh, let’s do it! Will I get to meet her girlfriend?”

“Nah, I kidnapped Chaeyoung two days ago. They’ll get pissy if I don’t give her a break. But Tzuyu has another close friend, and it’s been a while since I abducted her.”

“Can we do it?” Sana bounced up and down on the bed. “I’ve never been on this side of a hostage situation. I want to see what it’s like!”

“Why not?” Nayeon laughed. “Do you want to go right now?”

“Yes! Let’s go!” Sana struck a dramatic pose, hands on her hips and everything. “Tonight, we kidnap… what’s her name?”

“Kim Dahyun.”

“Tonight we kidnap Kim Dahyun!”

Sana’s enthusiasm was enough to drain the last of Nayeon’s anxiety away. She put her phone down and sat up with a smile, giving Sana a quick kiss before getting out of the bed.

“Whatever you want partner. Let’s go have a good time.”


	6. First Kidnapping

Being the strategic mastermind that she was, Nayeon had planned ahead and brought blankets for their stakeout. Ordinarily, snuggling together on top of a roof would lead to falling asleep while stargazing, but not tonight.

Tonight, they had a mission.

“So Tzuyu is taking the night off superheroing to go have fun with Chaeyoung and Dahyun. According to my source they’re headed to their usual club which means they should walk down this road in about five minutes.”

“That’s when we make our move?”

“Exactly.” Nayeon nodded. “You cause a distraction to separate them and I’ll grab Dahyun. Be as loud and destructive as you want.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.” Sana faked a tearful sniff. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m not the five-time winner of Japan’s clumsiest superhero for nothing.”

“Five times?” Nayeon laughed. “Then you shouldn’t have any problems creating a mild ruckus.”

“A mild ruckus.” Sana giggled. “I like that.”

“What? My vocabulary?”

“You say phrases that my grandma would use, but the way you say it is funny.”

“Alright, now I know for sure you’re just flattering me.” Nayeon gave her a mock glare. “No one has ever called me funny and genuinely meant it.”

“Well then I guess I’m your first.”

Sana gave a delighted laugh as Nayeon turned away, the cool wind doing little to hide her blush. Hopefully, Sana would assume she was embarrassed by the innuendo, and not by the fact that Sana appreciated her sense of humour.

Nayeon now had one person who found her funny, which was one person more than Jeongyeon had. That thought alone was enough to put a smile on her face.

“By the way, I never asked you what you thought of my friends.” Nayeon tried to keep her voice casual. “I know they like you, so I just want to check if you’re up for visiting them again sometime in the future.”

Judging by Sana’s smirk, she had a feeling that her attempt at casualness had failed.

“You’re protective of your friends, aren’t you?”

“Caught me.” Nayeon smiled. “Although I think the six-year grudge over a summer camp incident should have been warning enough that I can get a little overprotective.”

“Well I think you’re hot when you get serious. If I ever went after your friends you’d take me down instantly, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

“Like I said.” Sana’s smirk grew wider. “Hot.”

Nayeon’s thoughts were starting to veer towards the inappropriate, which would be great if they weren’t on a mission. She gave her head a little shake to clear it of unhelpful memories, and when she looked back at Sana she was only slightly thinking about what they’d gotten up to earlier in her secret base.

In Nayeon’s defence, the marks that were still visible on Sana’s neck made it very hard for her to completely push those memories away.

“Seriously though, you don’t have a problem with them, do you?”

“Not at all.” Sana replied cheerfully. “Jeongyeon is really nice and I love how easily I can make her flustered. As for Jihyo…”

She paused for three terrifying seconds, and Nayeon tried to pretend that she’d be fine dating someone who didn’t like Jihyo. Emphasis on _tried_ , because there was no way she could ever be happy with someone who didn’t appreciate how wonderful her friend was.

“…I won’t lie I think I’m a little bit in love with her.”

Once again, Sana proved that Nayeon’s anxiety was an overdramatic bitch. Sana soothed her worries so naturally and unknowingly, that each time Nayeon was left feeling pleasantly surprised. At this rate, Nayeon might actually work up the courage to ask Sana to be her official girlfriend.

“An understandable reaction to being in Jihyo’s presence.” Nayeon smiled. “I’m fairly sure everyone who knows her is at least ten percent in love with her, myself included.”

“Good to know you’re not the jealous type.”

Noise from below distracted Nayeon from replying. She peeked over the edge of the building, then signalled to Sana when she saw their target.

Kim Dahyun. Nineteen years old, hair dyed strawberry blonde, her dress leaning as close to conservative as possible while also being appropriate for a nightclub. Never drank too much or did drugs. Once thought she got really high from a weed brownie, but it turned out there was no weed in it and she was just really hyper that night.

That was the biggest story Nayeon knew about her. She had only kidnapped Dahyun once or twice before, which meant she had yet to bond with the kid like she had with Chaeyoung. On the bright side, this meant that Dahyun actually found her a little intimidating.

Well, maybe not _intimidating_ , but she didn’t roll her eyes every time Nayeon spoke, which was more than she could say for Chaeyoung and Tzuyu. Kids these days just didn’t know how to respect their elders.

She watched as the trio drew closer. Dahyun said something that caused Chaeyoung to start whining loudly, and Tzuyu laughed so hard she lost her balance and had to grab her girlfriend’s arm for support.

“Wow.” Sana whispered. “I didn’t think Tzuyu could look so happy. She always seems so stressed and serious.”

“I know.” Nayeon wrinkled her nose. “It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Makes me want to commit a crime right now just to get her natural murderous glare back.”

“Why are Tzuyu’s friends so small? Do they instinctively flock to her so she can provide shelter when the weather gets bad?”

“Maybe.” Nayeon whispered back. “Personally, I think Tzuyu only gets close to people under a certain height deliberately. It’s some sort of weird power dynamic, being the only tall one in a group.”

“You might be on to something. Remember when she told us she’s scared of Chaeyoung growing taller than her?”

“Exactly. Let’s talk conspiracy later though, it’s time to move.”

“Kiss for luck?”

Nayeon shuffled over to kiss Sana. Their lips were cold from the night air, but the excitement they were both feeling easily made up for it.

“You’ve got this.” Nayeon murmured.

Sana winked, and then she disappeared.

Nayeon made her way over to the fire escape, listening for the sound of Sana’s distraction as she quietly crept down the side of the building. Her hand went to her pocket, double checking that she still had the sedative she needed.

“My taste in music does not make me a hipster!” Nayeon recognised Chaeyoung’s indignant whine.

“No, but when you combine it with everything else about you, you get one massive hipster.”

“Lies and slander! Tzuyu, defend me!”

“Sorry Chaeng, but I remember our date where you showed me how you grew your own strawberries while we listened to your entire collection of vinyl records.”

“You loved that! You said my rainbow overalls were cute!”

“They were cute. They were also very hipster.”

Nayeon was actually growing invested in this debate, which was why the loud scream caught her by surprise. She jumped down the last two flights of stairs before she realised it was just Sana.

“OHYO OHYO OHYO OHYO OHYO!”

“What the fuck was that?” She heard Tzuyu say.

“Was that a person?”

“I thought it was a bird.” Dahyun replied, baffled.

“No, I think it was a person pretending to be a bird.”

“Why were they yelling though?”

Sana seemed to give up on her strange noises and just flat out shrieked.

“That’s definetly a person, and it sounds like they’re in trouble!”

“Chaeyoung, wait!”

Two pairs of footsteps took off away from where Nayeon was hiding. She turned the corner and saw Dahyun still standing there, while Chaeyoung raced towards Sana’s screams and Tzuyu followed her.

All according to plan.

Dahyun went to run after her friends, but it was too late. Nayeon had already snuck up behind her, and by the time Dahyun turned around to face her Nayeon had stuck the needle in her neck.

“Nayeon?” Dahyun mumbled. “Is that you? What…”

“Don’t worry, it’s just a sedative.” She caught Dahyun’s body as the girl slumped forward. “Time to take a quick nap.”

She dragged the sleeping Dahyun into the alley she’d been hiding in, then all the way down to where she and Sana had agreed to meet up. At first Nayeon thought something had gone wrong, but then Dahyun’s legs started floating, and Sana slowly shimmered into visibility.

“Mission success!” Sana whispered triumphantly.

“Nice work with the noises. I think you genuinely freaked them out.”

“Why thank you.” Sana flipped her hair back dramatically. “Shall we get our hostage back to the hotel?”

“We shall.” Nayeon grinned.

Secure in both of their arms, Dahyun let out a little snore.

* * *

“I’ve been thinking.”

Nayeon looked up from where she was lounging on the comfy armchair. The sedative was meant to wear off around now, but Dahyun was still happily asleep on the sofa. To pass the time, Sana had switched the television on and flicked through the channels until she found a rerun of that survival show she was becoming invested in. Nayeon scrolled through her phone, occasionally glancing at the TV to see who Sana was yelling at this time.

“About how Chaeyeon didn’t deserve to get kicked out of her group? I agree.”

“Well yes, but actually I was thinking about Dahyun.”

“Oh?” Nayeon turned so she was fully facing Sana. “What about her?”

“She’s like us, isn’t she? The third wheel to her two best friends.”

“Huh.” Nayeon thought about it. “Yeah, I guess she is. Actually, I think it’s worse for her. She was the one who introduced Tzuyu to Chaeyoung, then boom, her best friend stole her new friend and she was left single.”

“That’s so sad.” Sana seemed genuinely upset for this girl who she’d yet to actually talk to. “You know what I think? I think we should recruit her.”

“Recruit Dahyun?” Nayeon glanced over at the sleeping girl. “I don’t know. She’s not much of a law breaker, and besides, she doesn’t have any superpowers.”

“She could still be a part of our team. Come on, she’s one of us! What’s the harm in asking?”

Nayeon could think of at least five reasons while she didn’t want to recruit Dahyun, but with Sana giving her sad puppy dog eyes she found her brain going blank. She was starting to think Sana had a second superpower besides invisibility, because the way Sana’s bottom lip quivered made Nayeon want to drop everything and devote her existence to making Sana smile again.

 “Ok.” she sighed. “I’ll ask her about it when she wakes up. I’m just warning you now, but she’ll probably say no.”

“Yay!” Sana lunged at her, knocking Nayeon back into her chair with a warm hug. “Third wheels unite!”

“We are not calling ourselves that.”

A noise from the sofa distracted both of them, and they scrambled up as Dahyun groaned, blinking and looking around. As soon as she saw them, she shut her eyes and let her head fall back down onto cushions.

“Hey!” Nayeon walked over, while Sana went to switch off the TV. “We didn’t kidnap you so you could sleep all night!”

“Just send Tzuyu the ransom note and let me rest.”

“We’re not sending a ransom note.”

That got Dahyun’s attention. She opened one eye and squinted suspiciously up at Nayeon.

“If you’re not sending a ransom note then why am I here?”

“You’re here…” Sana stepped forward dramatically. “Because we want you to join us.”

“Not interested.”

“What? Come on, you didn’t even hear us out.”

“Don’t need to.” Dahyun shut her eyes again. “I’m not going to turn on my friends.”

“Are they really your friends though?” Nayeon leant forward. “Are they _really?”_

Dahyun opened her eyes to stare flatly at Nayeon.

“Yes.”

“Ok look, here’s the deal.” Nayeon bounced down onto the sofa, jolting Dahyun up. “You’re a third wheel to Chae and Tzuyu, I’m a third wheel to Jeongyeon and Jihyo, and Sana here is a third wheel to her two best friends. Aren’t you sick of it? Don’t you think you deserve better? Join us, Dahyun. Let us show you the light.”

The gleam in her eyes was unsettling enough to make Dahyun scoot away from her. Nayeon felt so proud of herself for getting a reaction like that.

“I’m really not interested in joining your… supervillain cult or whatever.” Dahyun was up and paying attention, but she looked so confused that Nayeon wasn’t sure if it was an improvement. “And I’m not a third wheel. Yeah I’m single, but if I wanted to I could join Chaeyoung and Tzuyu at any time. We arranged this when they first started dating.”

“I’m sure that’s what they told you.” Nayeon placed a sympathetic hand on Dahyun’s shoulder. “But did they really mean it, or were they just trying to make you feel better? I’ve been down that road too, kiddo. Do you think they’d really let you have a threesome with them, or do they just want to keep you as their friend?”

“You know what? Maybe you’re right.” Dahyun snapped. “Maybe that time Chaeyoung ate me out while Tzuyu watched was totally just a platonic friend date. Just us gals being pals right?”

There was a stunned silence in the room.

“Oh.” Nayeon said at last. “Oh wow. I genuinely have no response to that. Sana?”

Sana shook her head, looking at Dahyun with a mixture of shock and admiration.

“Right.” Nayeon said. “Well. Moving on- Wait, no. One more question. You’ve been with them, so you know who tops, don’t you?”

“I’m not selling out my friends.” Dahyun said indignantly.

“Come on.”

“No.”

“Come on. Please”

“No.

“Come on come on come on come on-”

“Fine!” Dahyun threw her hands in the air. “I won’t confirm or deny anything, but deep down, I think you know the truth.”

Nayeon looked her in the eye, saw the guilt lurking there and grinned.

“I knew it!” Nayeon cheered. “I knew it! Oh boy, I’m already thinking of ten new whipped jokes to make next time Tzuyu comes to rescue Chaeyoung.”

“Is this seriously why you kidnapped me?” Dahyun yelled. “For this? Did you really think you could convince me to betray my friends with some fake attempt at a singles club? I can see that your bed has been used plenty, so I doubt you two are as lonely as you’re insisting.”

“It’s true.” Nayeon replied calmly. “We had sex on that bed.”

“Many, many times.” Sana added.

“And originally, this was just meant to be a simple kidnapping. But Sana saw a kindred spirit in you, not just someone who was single, but someone who was suffering the fate of the third wheel, just like us.”

“We were wrong about that.” Sana admitted.

“True. We were very, very wrong about your relationship with your friends. So as an apology, we will answer any question you ask. Just one, so choose wisely. This is your chance to get top secret information on Tzuyu’s worst enemies.”

Dahyun gulped, and Nayeon saw how her eyes strayed to their rumpled bedsheets, then to the marks on Sana’s neck. It almost made her laugh, but she couldn’t really blame Dahyun for being curious. She was probably the one who’d put that idea in the girl’s head.

“You want to know who tops?”

Dahyun said nothing, but she gave a short jerk of her head. Sana cooed at her embarrassment, and Dahyun turned completely red, burying her face in the cushions.

“It’s like you said Dahyun.” Nayeon smirked. “Deep down, I think you already know the answer.”

Dahyun didn’t reply to that, but she did peek her head out from the cushions to shoot Sana a surprised glance. Nayeon understood why. Sana was so very confident when it came to flirting, it was easy to assume she’d take charge.

“What can I say?” Sana smirked at Dahyun’s expression. “I’m versatile.”

“We could show you if you want.” Nayeon added. “Our offer still stands. Join us now, and I promise we’ll make it worth your time.”

“Yeah, my answer is still no.” Dahyun recovered enough from her embarrassment to reply. “Sorry, but even if I wanted to be in a three-way relationship I would chose my friends over their enemies.”

“Are you sure?” Sana slid closer, her eyes dancing. “Nayeon and I have a lot of fun together. It could be a learning experience for you.”

“I’m sure you and your girlfriend are… lovely, but I’m good thanks.”

“Fair enough.” Nayeon sat back with a sigh. “At least we tried. I’ll give Tzuyu a call and let her know we have you. Babe, what do you want the ransom to be? I’m kind of hungry, so maybe we can exchange Dahyun for some chicken?”

“I understand now why Chaeyoung wants to fight you so badly.” Dahyun muttered.

Nayeon didn’t reply, too busy staring worriedly at Sana. She had yet to say anything, and simply stood there, looking at Nayeon with shining eyes.

“Girlfriend!” Sana said at last. “She called me your girlfriend and you didn’t deny it!”

“Oh.” Nayeon laughed nervously. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t. Was that ok? Because if you don’t want to go steady with me I get it but if you do I mean, I’d be happy to, but no pressure alright? Didn’t mean to put you on the spot or anything it’s just-”

Sana tugged her up off the sofa, crashing their lips together. Nayeon moved instinctively, pulling her jacket off and pushing Sana over to the bed. Sana wrapped her arms around Nayeon’s neck, dragging them both down onto the mattress.

Nayeon was halfway through pulling Sana’s shirt off when she realised Dahyun had just gotten up and left.

* * *

Dahyun wasn’t sure how long she wandered the streets. She felt dazed, unsure if these past few hours had actually happened. Maybe this was all just a dream. Who would kidnap her then get so distracted making out with their girlfriend that they would let Dahyun just walk out of the hotel?

Well, considering all the rants she’d heard from Chaeyoung and Tzuyu, that did actually sound like something Nayeon would do.

“Dahyun!”

She looked up, relief flooding her as she saw Tzuyu running towards her. Her friend slammed into her and Dahyun hugged her tightly, feeling far more relaxed now that she was safe in the arms of an actual superhero.

“Chaeng and I have been looking everywhere for you! What happened? Where did you go?”

“Uh… it’s a long story. Nayeon and her new girlfriend kind of kidnapped me.”

Tzuyu’s expression went from relief to rage in under a second. Chaeyoung liked to call it the Nayeon effect.

“I’m going to kill her.” Tzuyu growled. “Her and that former superhero. I’m going to murder them both.”

“No, no you won’t.” Dahyun attempted to grab Tzuyu again, but it was hard when her friend had super strength. “You are not killing them Tzuyu!”

“You can’t stop me! You’re not Jihyo!”

They both paused at that.

“…and Jihyo’s not the boss of me!”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Dahyun took a step back as Tzuyu glared at her. “Look, you want to know why you can’t kill them? Because then you’ll go to prison, and Chaeyoung will cry a lot because she won’t be able to see you whenever she wants. Do you want that Tzuyu? Do you want to make Chaeyoung cry?”

Tzuyu sighed, her anger deflating. Dahyun very deliberately did not think about what she had told Nayeon. Because really, whipped didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Fine.” Tzuyu grumbled. “I’ll let them live for now. Chaeyoung’s still running around looking for you, so we should focus on finding her. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“Nope. They tried to get me to join them and then they got distracted by each other and it looked like they were going to start having sex so I just got up and left.”

“That’s good.” Tzuyu frowned. “I’m still telling Jihyo on them. Nayeon’s started kidnapping you guys far too regularly.”

“Maybe if you had more than two friends we wouldn’t be the targets all the time.”

“Whose side are you on, Dahyun?”

“They wanted to trade me for some chicken.” Dahyun shook her head at the memory. “Trust me, there’s no way I’m swapping sides after that.”

Tzuyu snorted, and Dahyun found herself laughing too, feeling much more cheerful than she had five minutes ago. Being drugged and held hostage had not been a part of her plan for the night, but there was still time to enjoy herself.

“Come on Tzuyu. Let’s go find your girlfriend before Nayeon decides to kidnap her too.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me writing this chapter: Remember this is a Sanayeon fic so keep your maknae line bias under control.  
> Me editing this chapter: Well shit.


	7. First Revenge Scheme

When Nayeon woke up the next morning, it was to the sight of Sana sleeping next to her, with a soft, peaceful expression on her face.

Like every other time she’d woken up in the same bed as Sana, Nayeon’s first thought was _Holy fuck._

She’d probably grow out of it at some point. Probably. But right now, Sana still took her breath away.

God, why was Nayeon so full of cliché lines lately? Was this what having a girlfriend did to you?

Heh. Sana was her girlfriend. Nayeon smiled and gave a happy little wriggle.

Beside her, Sana let out a snore.

Nayeon slipped out of the bed, careful not to wake her girlfriend. She decided to order room service for the two of them, because it was the closest she could get to bringing her girlfriend breakfast in bed. She picked what her girlfriend had ordered yesterday, then dialled reception and placed an order for the two of them. She hoped- no she _knew_ , her girlfriend would like it.

Because they were girlfriends. Sana was her _girlfriend_.

Nayeon slapped herself lightly on the cheek, but the giddy grin refused to leave her face. Hopefully it would fade by the time Sana woke up, because seeing her creepily large grin first thing in the morning would freak anyone out.

Maybe it wouldn’t creep Sana out though. Her girlfriend was different like that.

A vibrating noise distracted Nayeon from mentally repeating the word _girlfriend_ another thousand times. She walked over to the table and saw that Sana’s phone was ringing. It was the same girl from last time, Momo. Nayeon let the phone ring, and when it finally stopped she could see that there were multiple missed calls from both Momo and Mina.

Her good mood didn’t fade, but she did calm down a little.

Nayeon still wasn’t going to bring it up. Judging by the amount of missed calls Sana clearly didn’t want to talk to her friends, and Nayeon had a feeling Sana would rather ignore the problem completely instead of talking about it to anyone. If she did want to rant some more, Nayeon would listen. But she wasn’t going to push it, not when there was still so much fun to be had.

However, she was a little too curious to completely ignore it.

Sana was still fast asleep and the room service hadn’t arrived yet, so Nayeon whipped out her own phone and searched up Momo. The first batch of results were mixed, so she searched “Momo, Trinity” and got a much clearer set of links.

The first result was a Youtube channel. Nayeon assumed it was run by a fan, but to her surprise it turned out to be a channel where Momo uploaded dance videos. Nayeon watched one with over seven million views of her performing some strange vampire dance. It was impressive, Momo clearly had a lot of talent and it didn’t hurt that she was very attractive. Was that a requirement to be a superhero or something?

She scrolled down into the comments, and things got even weirder when she noticed that Chaeyoung was subscribed to Momo’s channel. Her comments seemed to all be compliments followed by requests to do various meme dances. Thankfully, Momo had yet to notice her.

One of the recommended videos was titled “Samo being clumsy compilation”.  Nayeon considered watching it, but it felt a bit like she was invading Sana’s privacy. She wanted to know more about Sana’s friends in general, but whatever relationship Sana had with them should be hers to tell. So instead of watching that, Nayeon searched up Mina. The first result was another compilation video, this time of Sana accidentally injuring Mina. It seemed she really hadn’t been exaggerating her level of clumsiness.

The second result was another news article about how the Trinity had saved Osaka from a slime monster. Sana and Momo had apparently knocked each other out in the process, so only Mina was available for interviews. There was a video clip attached which Nayeon watched.

“So tell me Mina, what are you three going to do now that it’s all over? Since you and Momo are officially a couple, can you tell us what you two get up to in your free time?”

Mina stared blankly into the camera, did a strange pose, and walked away.

“There goes Mina with her classic Sailor Venus move.” The reporter laughed. “So mysterious that one. Maybe one day we’ll actually hear her voice, but today just isn’t that day folks!”

The clip ended, and she scrolled down to read the comments.

_Lol Mina is so uncomfortable when asked about Momo. Mimo is obviously a PR relationship to cover up Samo._

_As if! Have you seen the way Sana and Mina look at each other? 2na is the realest ship._

_You’re all so twisted and delusional. Mina and Momo are happy together. Deal with it._

_She’s right. But seriously, you can’t tell me 2na haven’t kissed at least once._

Nayeon put her phone away before she was tempted to reply. It felt like she had learnt a lot, yet learnt absolutely nothing at the same time.

A knock on the door signalled room service was here. Nayeon went to answer it, and when she turned back around Sana was sitting up, blinking slowly at the world around her. Her eyes landed on Nayeon and turned soft, her mouth curving into a bright smile.

“Hey.” Nayeon said, pretending that her heart wasn’t swelling up with love. “I made you breakfast.”

“Breakfast in bed? What did I do to deserve such an amazing girlfriend?”

The dumb smile was back on Nayeon’s face. She brought the tray over to Sana and settled down next to her on the bed.

“Well as an amazing girlfriend yourself, I thought that you deserved the best I could get. Which is why a professional chef made it and not me, otherwise breakfast would be two burnt pieces of toast with a side of kimchi.”

Sana laughed, then leant over to kiss Nayeon. Nayeon got so distracted that she almost tipped the tray all over the bed, but the sound of the plates sliding made her jerk away and balance it again. Sana laughed again before balancing the tray on her knees.

“So what’s the plan for today, oh girlfriend of mine?”

Sana seemed to be relishing the girlfriend thing as much as Nayeon was. Every time Nayeon was worried that she was being too weird, Sana immediately turned out to be just as weird as she was. It was unreal how connected Nayeon felt to her, like they were walking through life on the same wavelength.

_It’s only been three days, you cheesy dumbass!_ Nayeon’s brain screamed at her. _Calm down!_

Nayeon’s heart politely told her brain to shut the fuck up, and continued to spout ridiculous sappy nonsense every time Sana so much as smiled at her.

“Well,” she cleared her throat, trying to focus on answering the question and not the way Sana’s eyes practically _twinkled_. “Honestly I’ve no real plan for the day. We can do whatever we want, but I recommend not causing much trouble because Jihyo will most likely be ringing today to yell at us for kidnapping Dahyun. That’s going to be unpleasant no matter what, but it’ll be easier if we haven’t done anything too bad today.”

“Really?” Sana took a bite of her omelette, cheeks screwing up like an adorable chipmunk as she chewed. “I didn’t think Jihyo was that scary.”

“Oh she’s lovely.” Nayeon agreed. “The sweetest angel, incredibly kind, generous and forgiving. But she’s also one scary motherfucker if you truly piss her off. Considering I’ve kidnapped both of Tzuyu’s friends in under a week, if she rats me out it will not be pretty.”

“Is it bad that I actually want to see that?”

“I get the curiosity, but trust me-”

Nayeon’s phone rang.

She took it out, saw the number, and flung her phone across the bed.

“Oh fuck it’s her!”

“What?” Sana jumped up. “Are you sure?”

“It’s the house number calling but I can’t think why it would be Jeongyeon. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! You jinxed it!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Sana cried. “I take it back! I take it back!”

She yelled it as if the universe would suddenly reverse the call, but the phone kept ringing. Nayeon sighed, then reached forward.

“We have to answer it. There’s no telling how angry she’ll be if we ignore it, and I actually enjoy living.”

“How will she know we’re not just asleep?”

“Jihyo _always_ knows.”

Nayeon hit answer, putting her phone on speaker and screwing up her face in preparation for the tirade that was about to come.

“Nayeon?”

“Jeongyeon!” Nayeon cheered. “Oh, I’m so glad it’s you!”

“You missed me that much huh?”

“I…Yes. Yes I did.”

“And your joy has nothing to do with the kidnapping Tzuyu has just informed me about?”

Well shit. Sana was making frantic hand signals, but Nayeon couldn’t interpret them quickly enough, so she just shrugged.

“Ok fine. You caught me.”

“So then I’m guessing you thought I was Jihyo.”

“Maybe so.”

“I’m devastated.” Jeongyeon said, not sounding upset in the slightest. “Here I thought you were just that happy to hear from me.”

“Yeah yeah.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. “Does Jihyo know?”

“Nope. She’s at rehearsals right now, so I told Tzuyu I’d take care of it.”

“Oh?” Nayeon winked at Sana, a sly smile on her face. “You haven’t told Jihyo yet? You want something from me, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” Jeongyeon replied without missing a beat. “You do this for me and I won’t tell Jihyo about how you and Sana traumatized Dahyun last night.”

“Traumatized her? She wasn’t scared in the slightest.”

“Do me this favour and I’ll let Jihyo know that if she finds out.”

“Fine. What do you need and why is it so shady that you need me to do it?”

“It’s about Jihyo.” Nayeon straightened up at the sudden seriousness of Jeongyeon’s voice. “That musical she’s in? Someone’s bullying her. There’s this woman called Chanmi who wanted the lead role, and since Jihyo got it instead and she’s just playing a side part she’s been harassing Jihyo for weeks.”

“Who told you this? We both know Jihyo’s too stubborn to admit she’s in trouble.”

“Kim Chungha. She said Jihyo won’t fight back, because she’s worried she’ll get a reputation for being a diva. She’s leaving it up to the directors and producers to solve this, but apparently they’re useless.”

“Chungha? The same Chungha who’s friends with literally everyone?”

“Exactly. If she’s coming to me saying there’s a problem with this girl, I believe her.”

“Well shit.” Nayeon exchanged a worried glance with Sana. “We’ll take care of it Jeongyeon. Thanks for telling me.”

“No problem. Get Chaeyoung to hack her if you need to. I’d do it myself but I don’t want Jihyo finding out about this.”

“I get it.” Nayeon sighed. “Jihyo’s all about fighting her own battles, and never asks for help even when she should. We’ve done this before.”

“I remember.” It sounded like Jeongyeon was smiling. “She never realised why that boy cried and begged for forgiveness after insulting her the day before. Or why the whole school was suddenly really careful not to offend her after that.”

“That little twerp had it coming, but let me not. I’ll contact Chaeyoung, and this Chanmi girl will be out of the musical by tonight.”

“Thanks Nayeon. Say hi to Sana for me.”

“We’re girlfriends now!” Sana yelled into the phone.

“Oh! That’s great?” Jeongyeon sounded baffled, but happy. “Well, I hope you have a good time. Please don’t cause too much collateral damage.”

“No promises.”

Nayeon hung up then, turning to face Sana with a devious grin on her face.

“Looks like we’ve got our plan for the day. You game, partner?”

“Of course.” Sana’s grin was equally as devious. “What are you thinking? Do we scare her into leaving? Expose her? Just walk up and deck her in the face?”

“I’m loving your enthusiasm, and all those options sound great. I’d say start by seeing if Chaeyoung can find anything worth exposing, and if not, we move to plan B.”

“Cool! If we do plan B can I be the one to punch her?”

“You can certainly have the first shot.”

“Nice.”

She found Chaeyoung’s number and rang it, putting the phone on speaker again. Chaeyoung answered after five rings.

“I’m warning you now, if you’re trying to kidnap me again Tzuyu will put your head through a wall.”

“Interesting. She usually just threatens to feed me to her dog.”

“We realised Gucci has better taste.”

“Doesn’t he eat cockroaches?”

“Your point?”

“Hi!” Sana chimed in. “I’m Sana.”

“Hey there.” Chaeyoung sounded too calm, like Tzuyu and Dahyun had prepared her for this. “Please don’t kidnap me.”

“We won’t.” Nayeon promised. “Not today anyway. We actually need your help with something.”

“And why would I help you?”

“It’s for Jihyo.”

The phone went silent. Nayeon smirked at Sana, who did her best to muffle her laughter.

After a moment, Chaeyoung answered.

“What do you need me to do?”

* * *

“Wow.” Nayeon scrolled through the hacked messages Chaeyoung had sent her. “Jeongyeon wasn’t kidding. This woman is horrible.”

“She really is a bully. Did you see what she was saying about Jihyo behind her back?”

“I did. And I also saw what she said about the musical as a whole. Chaeyoung really pulled through, these messages have her talking shit about everyone.”

“You think that they’ll fire her?”

“Considering they apparently only hired her because they didn’t have anyone else to play her part, I’d say they’ll definitely fire her. She’s mean, untalented and leaking these texts will create a ton of controversy. She’s not worth the hassle when they can just bump up extra number two to her role.”

“So how do we leak them?”

“We sneak into the theatre, steal one of the crew’s phones, and send this message to everyone involved in the show.”

“Dibs on doing the stealing!”

“Sure thing.” Nayeon grinned. “Your power is better suited for the task anyway. I’ll create a distraction.”

“Should we go right now?”

“Do you want to?”

“Well I kind of want to shower first.” Sana ducked her head, giving Nayeon a familiar mischievous look. “And I was hoping that this time you’d actually join me.”

Well. It wasn’t like Nayeon was going to say no to that.

“It’s still early in the morning.” She decided. “We can expose her in the afternoon.”

“Excellent. Let’s go see how many ways I can get you wet.”

“Oh my god.” Nayeon burst out laughing, letting Sana guide her towards the bathroom. “You have the worst innuendos, you know that?”

“Yeah, but you love it.”

Nayeon found she couldn’t argue with that either.


	8. First Time Interrupted

The sound of music and feet thumping on wood told Nayeon that they were in the right place. Being a notorious supervillain, she’d yet to actually visit the theatre where Jihyo worked, although she did plan on coming to every performance once tickets started selling. She had her disguise all picked out and everything.

The security was surprisingly lax. She and Sana just walked in through a fire exit, and nobody-

“Hey! What are you two doing here?”

Well, seems like she spoke to soon.

Nayeon clicked her reversal light, rewinding ten seconds and then nudging Sana.

“Go invisible.” she whispered.

For a second Sana looked confused, but then she caught on to what was happening. Her grin was the last thing to fade as she blended in with her surroundings, and she gave Nayeon’s hand a reassuring squeeze before separating.

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

Nayeon turned to face the security guard with a smile. Chances were he wasn’t connected to the producers and directors of this play, but they could luck out and find a group chat in his phone, so it was worth a shot.

“Who are you?” she asked, stalling for time so that Sana could get in position.

“I work here. Who are you?”

“Me? Well I…” she watched as the fire extinguisher slowly lifted itself from the wall. “I’m here, because…”

“Because?”

“Because…”

“She’s with me.”

Nayeon recognised that voice. It was one of Jihyo’s friends. She subtly signalled to Sana and the fire extinguisher slowly settled back into place. Kim Chungha walked up to her, smiling politely at the security guard.

“But she’s not wearing a pass?” the poor guard said, baffled.          

“Trust me, she’s a friend. I’m guessing this was a surprise visit and she didn’t realise she needed ID. Can you let this slide?”

“Chungha…”

“Please Chan? I didn’t say anything when you brought your wife and kids here. I promise you she won’t be any trouble.”

Nayeon felt slightly bad as the security guard nodded and walked away, because the entire purpose of her visit was to cause trouble. Still, she forced a smile on her face when Chungha turned around to face her.

“You’re Nayeon right? Jihyo’s friend?”

“That’s me.” Nayeon said. “Since you helped me out I should probably warn you that my girlfriend is also here.”

She winked, and Sana blinked back into visibility. Chungha jumped, then laughed.

“Nice to meet you.” she smiled at Sana. “Sorry, I’m not used to being around people with powers.”

“That’s ok.” Sana gave her a flirtatious smile back. “I’m not used to constantly being around pretty people, but this week I just keep running into them.”

“Well I’ve ran into two today so I think I win.” Chungha laughed again, and Sana seemed a little thrown at how she just brushed off her flirting. “I’m guessing you guys are here to see Jihyo? I can take you to her if you want.”

“Well yes but uh…” Nayeon hesitated, slightly concerned at the girl’s relaxed nature. “Just to clarify, you are aware that we’re supervillains, right? Normally I wouldn’t tell you this but you vouched for us back there, so I’d feel bad if you didn’t know.”

“Of course I know.” Chungha didn’t seem too worried about that fact. “You’re on the news all the time, and Sana’s been a trending topic for days. But Jihyo speaks fondly of you, so I’m assuming you’re here on friendship business and not supervillain business, right?”

“Well… sort of?”

“Great!” Chungha beamed. “Then I’ll take you to Jihyo. She should be getting her make up done right about now. We’re starting dress rehearsals in an hour.”

She turned around and started walking. Sana shuffled up to Nayeon as they followed behind her.

“Is she evil?” she whispered, too low for Chungha to hear. “Because seems way too chill and nice, and that’s coming from me.”

“I don’t think so.” Nayeon whispered back. “Jihyo always mentions how friendly Chungha is. It’s why I knew something was wrong when she was the one who told Jeongyeon about Chanmi.”

“So what should we do? We don’t want Jihyo to know about this, right?”

Nayeon chewed on her lip, deliberating. To trust or not to trust, that was the question.

“Hey Chungha.” she stopped walking. “We’re actually not here to see Jihyo.”

Chungha turned around, finally looking somewhat concerned.

“So then are you here on supervillain business? Please say no, we can’t afford to repair this theatre if you and Hulk start fighting.”

“No, it’s ok. We are here about Jihyo, we’re just not here to see her.”

Chungha looked even more confused, which was understandable. Nayeon glanced at Sana, a question in her eyes. Sana just shrugged in response.

_I’ll follow your lead. I trust you._

The fact that she and Sana could communicate so easily despite the short period of time they’d known each other for was something that Nayeon filed away to squeal about later. Right now, there was too much at stake for her not to be fully invested in the mission.

“We’re here about Chanmi.”

For a second Chungha’s eyes flashed, and Nayeon got ready to rewind time. If they could get Chungha on their side things would be a lot easier, but if they couldn’t… This could go bad very quickly.

“Jeongyeon told you?”

“Yeah.” Nayeon confirmed. “We did a little digging, and it turns out it’s not just Jihyo that this girl hates. We’ve got dirt on her saying ugly shit about pretty much everyone you work with. I think she has something about you too, saying you should stick with being the dance choreographer and not have a singing role as well.”

“I’m not surprised.” Chungha scoffed. “She’s said worse to my face. I’m guessing you’re here to expose her?”

“Exactly. While a lot of the texts are just bitchy, there’s some stuff on here that will definitely get her fired. So we came here to try and steal a crew member’s phone and send the evidence to the people in charge.”

“No need.” Chungha took out her phone. “Text it to me. I don’t have your number so it’ll be an anonymous tip. I’ll send it on to everyone.”

Nayeon hesitated, her own phone in her hand.

“Why would you help us?” she asked. “You’re putting yourself directly in the spotlight and why? For Jihyo?”

“Jihyo’s lovely, and I’m happy to have her as my friend, but this isn’t just about her.” Chungha’s eyes flashed again, angry and serious. “She may be the main target of Chanmi’s bullying, but last week I spent half an hour comforting this kid named Somi in the bathroom because Chanmi made her feel insecure. She’s sixteen and she was in tears, talking about quitting, because this woman thought it would be funny to harass her. My girlfriend Heehyun almost got fired because Chanmi forced a confrontation then played the victim. Stuff like this has been going on since Chanmi became a part of this production so trust me, you’re not the only one interested in getting her out of here.”

Nayeon looked at Sana, and Sana nodded.

“I don’t think she’s evil.”

Chungha looked confused again, but thankfully she didn’t question Sana’s verdict. Nayeon unlocked her phone and sent Chungha the evidence Chaeyoung had gathered. As well as screenshots, there was a video showing how Chaeyoung had found the evidence, and a few links that Nayeon didn’t understand, but assumed was something Chaeyoung added for further proof of legitimacy.

Next time she kidnapped that kid, she was buying her a pizza or something.

Chungha rattled off her number and Nayeon typed it in, sending her the incriminating file. Chungha’s phone pinged and Nayeon and Sana watched over her shoulder as she forwarded the file to a bunch of names they didn’t recognize.

“These are the producers, and this is the director. I’ll send it to the cast group chat too, and the costume and stage department.”

_Someone sent me this file. I don’t recognise the number but the stuff inside it…I’m pretty sure it’s legitimate._

“Nice.” Nayeon said approvingly. “All you need to do now is not tell Jihyo that we were here. She can be a bit…”

“I know. There’s a reason I told Jeongyeon about this.” Chungha winked. “But you might want to hurry and get out of here before someone sees you with me and puts two and two together.”

“Will do. Thanks for helping us.”

Nayeon took Sana’s hand and waved goodbye. Sana followed her around the corner and out of Chungha’s sight, then pulled Nayeon to a stop.

“Are we actually leaving?”

“I am.” Nayeon grinned. “I can’t afford to get caught here, but since I have a beautiful girlfriend with the power to turn invisible, I’m thinking you could stay here to film Chanmi’s meltdown? It’ll give us better entertainment to watch tonight instead of that survival show you get so heated over.”

“There are so many trainees that shouldn’t have been eliminated! _So many!”_

“Babe.”

Sana huffed, but after a second her pout grew into a smile.

“Fine. I’ll stay behind here and try to film the reaction. Meet you back at the hotel?”

“Sure thing.” Nayeon leant forward, smiling as Sana happily ducked her head and kissed her.

This thing with the domestic kisses they had going, it still scared Nayeon a little. It felt like they were skipping over relationship steps like they were Olympic athletes doing the long jump, and part of her was still worried they’d burn through all their feelings at the pace they were going. But then Sana reached forward to cup Nayeon’s cheek, so she shoved her worries to the side and gave her full attention to the beautiful girl she was kissing.

Life was good. She had good skin, an incredible superpower, and an amazing girlfriend who was willing to help her destroy someone’s life because they fucked with one of Nayeon’s people.

Really, what more could Nayeon ask for?

* * *

“Oh wow.” Nayeon remarked, curled up on the bed cuddling with Sana. “She really snapped, huh?”

Sana lay with her head on Nayeon’s shoulder, idly playing with Nayeon’s hand while they watched the video.

“Trust me, it gets better.”

The blurry camera footage showed Chanmi whirling around and screaming something at Chungha, who put her hands in the air in a gesture Nayeon recognised as ‘ _Don’t shoot the messenger’._ Chanmi said something else, which caused the girl next to Chungha to step forward with a snarl. The way Chungha held her back made Nayeon assume that was her girlfriend, and for a second she was worried that Chanmi wasn’t the only one who got fired today. At the same time, she was still sort of hoping the girl would take a swing at Chanmi, but it turned out that Sana wasn’t lying about things getting better.

Someone tapped Chanmi on the shoulder, and when she turned around Jihyo punched her straight in the face.

“Oh my god.” Nayeon said, then lower. “ _Oh my god.”_

“I thought you’d like that part.” Sana grinned.

“Jihyo really…”

“She did that.”

“She really did.”

The video ended with Chanmi being escorted out by security. Sana had to reach over and stop it from replaying, because Nayeon’s jaw was still dropped from witnessing Jihyo’s punch.

“That was amazing.” she said at last.

“I wish you could have been there.” Sana admitted, snuggling deeper into Nayeon’s neck. “But being able to share stuff like this is one of the few things I love about invisibility.”

“You enjoy spying on people?” Nayeon smirked. “You really do make a great supervillain.”

“You think so? For real?”

“I think that you could be the most dastardly of all if you really wanted to.”

Sana’s smile was sweeter than honey. She shuffled up to kiss Nayeon, and Nayeon happily began the familiar act of pushing Sana’s jacket off her shoulders. The heat from Sana’s lips, her touch, the small sounds she made when Nayeon began to use her tongue, it was all so much and Nayeon loved it, loved her.

Wait, no, she’d only known Sana for-

Sana pushed upwards, kissing Nayeon passionately, demanding her full attention. It was messy and wet and Nayeon kissed her back twice as hard.

Fuck it, maybe she was in love.

She got Sana’s t-shirt off easily, and Sana let Nayeon push her down onto the bed, her chest heaving in a way that drew Nayeon’s eyes to it and made them stay there. She reached one hand out, tracing Sana’s neck slowly with her fingers. Sana moans grew louder and Nayeon suddenly felt impatient. Her hands scrabbled to get Sana’s bra off, but Sana was lying on the clasp so she needed-

The door burst open.

“Time’s up Sana! Did you really think we would-”

The girl in the doorway froze once she noticed what exactly Sana was up to. Nayeon used the distraction to grab her reversal light from the bedside table, and then she rewound fifteen seconds.

Sana looked confused when Nayeon suddenly leapt off the bed and grabbed the breakfast tray from the coffee table. Nayeon didn’t have time to explain, she just ran over beside the door and waited.

The door was kicked open, and Nayeon readied the tray.

“Time’s up Sana!” This time Nayeon actually recognized the girl, although seeing Momo outside of a screen was a strange sensation. “Did you-”

Nayeon swung, and Momo stumbled backwards, falling to the floor. Nayeon went to swing the tray again, but someone tackled her from the side, pushing her against a wall.

“Sorry babe.” Sana had a firm grip on Nayeon’s wrists, their noses practically touching. “I forgot to mention I’m also pretty protective of my friends, and you just brained one of them with a tray.”

“Don’t apologize.” Nayeon told her, still slightly dazed from being slammed into a wall. “Forceful is a good look on you. Makes me want to kiss you despite the audience.”

Unfortunately, the audience did not seem enthused by that idea.

“Sana, what’s going on? Why are you only wearing a bra? Who is this girl?”

Sana let Nayeon go, ignoring her pout. Momo was still sitting on the floor, rubbing her head and looking completely baffled.

“This is Nayeon.” Sana cleared her throat. “She’s my girlfriend, and you kind of interrupted us when we were in the middle of… something.”

“Oh.” Momo said, then her eyes widened. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.”

Footsteps could be heard growing louder in the corridor, and a new face came into view. Mina ran over to help Momo up, and then she saw Sana and did a double take.

“I can explain!” Sana said quickly. “There’s a perfectly logical explanation for this.”

“They were about to have sex.”

“Momo!”

“Well you were!”

Mina looked over at Nayeon, who waved awkwardly, then back at Sana, who’d found her jacket and was holding it up to cover most of her bare skin.

She sighed.

“Ten minutes.” she said, her voice soft but firm. “Then we come back and talk.”

“Deal.” Sana said immediately, all but slamming the door shut on them. She whirled around to face Nayeon, her face displaying a whole set of emotions that Nayeon had never seen on her before.

“Well, that was mortifying.”

“But it’ll be something we all laugh about in ten years, right?” Sana glared at Nayeon, who hurriedly relented. “Just maybe not something we laugh about right now. Ok, so, we’ve got ten minutes before they come back. Should we get dressed and try to get our story straight?”

Sana hesitated, eyes darting from Nayeon to the bed then back to her girlfriend. Nayeon couldn’t help but laugh at her conflicted expression.

“Really? You’re still in the mood?”

“Aren’t you?”

Well. Perhaps she had a point.

“Think I can get you off in under five minutes?”

“I think you’ll enjoy the challenge either way.”

“You know me so well.” Nayeon tugged her over to the bed. “I wonder if they’re still outside. Maybe they can hear us right now.”

“For their sake,” Sana grinned as Nayeon pinned her hands above her head. “I really hope not.”

(Later Nayeon would learn that Momo and Mina heard the first ten seconds of what they were doing then promptly decided to wait down in the hotel lobby.

A wise decision for sure, if you didn't want to know precisely what noises your best friend made when a girl was going down on her.)


	9. First Conflict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory, plot, and Nayeon Having Lots of Feelings. Things are going to get rough.

A little over a year ago, Nayeon met Yeri.

She was coming out of a very unsuccessful job interview. Having invented the reversal light, but with no idea what to do next, a job seemed like the most logical solution. After all, how hard could it be to succeed when Nayeon could just rewind and fix what she messed up?

Pretty hard, it turned out.

Her first mistake was when they asked her if she had any convictions. Nayeon thought long and hard about it, but she hadn’t really been raised religious, and she was still in the process of figuring her life out, so she answered that she didn’t have any serious ones.

It then dawned on her that they meant if she’d been convicted of any crimes. That was rewind number one.

Rewind number two happened when Nayeon accidentally gave them the impression she was a recovering drug addict. Rewind number three was because she misheard something and ended up implying she was a prostitute.

That convictions question was a tough one.

Once she got past that, Nayeon thought it would be easy enough, but ten rewinds later convinced her otherwise. Her most memorable slipups were twirling a pen around nervously in her hand before letting it slip and getting a big black line on her face, listing her number one weakness as “I keep getting prettier”, and assuming that the young man who came in was an intern and not the boss of the whole company.

Eventually, Nayeon just gave up and walked out. On her way out, it dawned on her that she’d rewound before she left, so she’d basically stood up at the start of the interview and left without an explanation. She definitely wasn’t getting the job, but this point, she was too fed up to give it one last try.

With the kind of luck she was having today, it wasn’t even a surprise when she exited the building and saw someone trying to break into her car.

“Hey!”

The girl looked up, and Nayeon realised that she was kind of cute right before she bolted. Cursing, she rewound back a few seconds, watching as the girl struggled to open the driver’s door.

“Need some help with that?” Nayeon asked cheerfully.

“Mind your own business.”

Well, it was better than sprinting away.

Nayeon took a moment to observe the girl. She had short, dirty blonde hair and was wearing a shirt and tie with a miniskirt and fishnets, like some high school kid trying to be punk.

“Are you supposed to be in school?”

“What the hell does that mean? I’m an adult.” The girl snapped. “And I thought I told you to mind your own business.”

“Well, I’m trying to. It’s just that you appear to be breaking into my car.”

The girl froze. Nayeon got ready to rewind if she tried to run away again.

“If you want a lift I’ll be happy to give it to you. I’ve got nowhere to be right now.”

The girl shot her a suspicious look, which was a bit rich considering their current circumstances.

“Are you a kidnapper?” she asked.

“No. I’m just bored.”

The girl seemed to believe her. She relaxed, leaning against Nayeon’s car but thankfully not trying to stick a ruler down the window anymore.

“I’m not actually in a hurry to get anywhere. I just wanted to steal your car because of its colour.”

Nayeon smiled proudly at her pink car. Jeongyeon and Jihyo had laughed so hard they cried when she got a paint job, but Nayeon had kept the colour anyway. Looks like she had the last laugh, because Jeongyeon’s old Mini Cooper never got the attention of any cute girls.

“Well if you want I can drive you around in it.”

“You really are bored, aren’t you?” The girl studied her closely, and Nayeon did her best not to look like a shady kidnapper. “I’m Yeri.”

“Nayeon.” She clicked her keys and the car unlocked. “Hop in if you want.”

Yeri did.

* * *

They drove around for a few minutes, Nayeon chatting about her job interview (leaving out a few time travelly details) and Yeri explaining what had inspired her to start stealing cars. They reached a red light at the intersection just when she was telling Nayeon about the Youtube video she’d watched where a man showed how to open a car door with a ruler.

“Turns out it’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“Well I’m glad you tried it anyways.”

The light turned green, and Nayeon hit the accelerator. They made halfway across the intersection when a truck came speeding out from the right and knocked into them. Yeri screamed as the car spun around and around, but Nayeon ignored it all, reaching for her reversal light.

Three seconds later, she was back at the red light.

“-lot harder than it looks.”

“Huh.” Nayeon said, too shaken to give a better reply.

The light turned green. Nayeon didn’t move. Yeri turned to look at her, confused.

“Why aren’t you driving?”

“Because of that.” Nayeon nodded to the truck that sped past.

“Holy shit.” Yeri’s jaw dropped, and Nayeon smirked as she finally tapped the accelerator. “What the hell? How did you know about that? Are you psychic?”

“What?” This time it was Nayeon’s turn to stare at her, baffled. “Oh, well I guess that is the conclusion most people would jump to. But nope, I can’t see the future. I can just live it and then rewind.”

She pulled her reversal light out of her pocket, feeling a thrill at how awestruck Yeri looked.

“This invention of mine let’s me go back up to two minutes in time. We got hit, I rewound, and we survived.”

“That’s insane.” Yeri whispered. “Are you a god?”

“I like to think so.” Nayeon laughed at Yeri’s serious expression. “No, I’m not a god. I was born a human and I still am, I just got hit by lightning a few years ago, and got a different view on the world.”

“A different view?” Yeri scoffed. “That’s one way of putting it. Why were you even at that job interview? With your power you could just take whatever you want.”

“Really?” Nayeon hummed thoughtfully. “I never considered that. I only finished building it a little while ago.”

“Can you help me steal a Nintendo Switch?”

“Seriously?” Nayeon glanced over at her, feeling disbelief at this girl’s forwardness.

“I haven’t been able to afford one yet and my foster family won’t get it for me. But with you and your amazing powers I’m thinking it would be easy.”

“No way.” Nayeon laughed. “I’m not a criminal. I mean, I was arrested for reckless driving, but that was accidental and it wasn’t even my fault that asshole in his huge truck just-”

One hour later, she and Yeri were driving around with a brand new Nintendo Switch.

“You know what we should do next?” Yeri said cheerfully. “We should rob an ATM or something. You sneak up and learn the pin, and I’ll steal the card.”

“What? No, I’m not robbing someone.”

“Please? It can be a really rich businessman.”

“It’s not happening.”

“Pretty please?”

“No!”

Thirty minutes later, Yeri was gleefully waving bundles of cash around while the car radio blared Ariana Grande’s latest album.

“I can’t believe you.” Nayeon laughed. “You couldn’t just stop with one, you had to scam three people.”

“I think you mean _we_ scammed three people.” Yeri flapped a wad of cash towards Nayeon’s face. “Don’t act like you aren’t having just as much fun as I am.”

“I’m not!”

“Liar.”

Nayeon didn’t say anything, but she did reach over to crank the radio up a little louder. Yeri laughed, singing the lyrics out of the open window. Nayeon laughed too, the memory of the disastrous interview slowly fading into the background of her mind.

* * *

They spent four days together, getting wilder and wilder. By Monday night, Nayeon lay in a five-star hotel bed, admiring her stolen jewels, while Yeri sat at the edge of the bed playing one of the many games they’d gotten for the Nintendo Switch.

“I can’t believe I was really going to work nine to five office jobs.” Nayeon slipped one of the diamond rings she’d stolen onto her finger. “I was lucky I met you.”

“I think I’m the lucky one here.” Yeri laughed, successfully completing another level of her game that Nayeon didn’t remember the name of.

She just sat there, staring at Yeri, admiring everything about her from the way she laughed to her concentration during the game to her cheeky smile that Nayeon had literally stolen millions for.

It had only been four days, but maybe…just maybe…

Yeri’s phone rang.

“Hello?” Nayeon sat up as Yeri answered it. “Joohyun? What do you mean I need to come home? I’m in the middle of- No I haven’t checked the news, why would I? Yeah, that was me, so what?”

The voice on the phone got louder. Yeri started looking a little nervous.

“I told you I was going to do my own thing! You don’t have to take responsibility for me anymore! No, I’m not in trouble! But-”

Yeri sighed as the voice got even sterner.

“Fine. I’m on my way.”

She hung up then, and Nayeon scooted forward, her stomach slowly curling with anxiety.

“That was my foster sister.” Yeri explained. “Apparently our crime spree caught the media’s attention, and she says I need to come home right now.”

“So you’re going?” Nayeon couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Just like that? It’s over?”

“Well yeah.” Yeri shrugged. “Joohyun is terrifying when she’s angry, and this is the most pissed off I’ve ever heard her.”

“But what about me?” Nayeon hated how pathetic she sounded.

“This was fun, and I had a really great time. But my family probably won’t want you seeing me ever again.”

“You were the one who gave me the idea of stealing!”

“Honestly, I don’t think my family will care. I’ll try my best to keep the lawyers out of it, and you can keep all the stuff if you’re mad at me for ditching so soon, but I really have to go.”

She walked out of the room. Nayeon took thirty seconds to register what exactly had happened.

Then she pulled out her reversal light and rewound.

Yeri walked out.

Nayeon rewound again.

Yeri walked out in tears.

Nayeon rewound again.

Yeri walked out laughing.

Again.

Nayeon stormed out.

Again.

They screamed at each other until Nayeon got sick and rewound.

“I only stole because you wanted me to!” she yelled. “You can’t just leave me!”

“As if you wouldn’t have gone into crime anyways!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your power Nayeon.” Yeri didn’t even sound angry anymore. “It’s incredible. You joked about being a god but the truth is you’re above the rest of us now. The rules we live our life by just don’t apply to you.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Oh yeah? How many times have you rewound this conversation?”

“I-” Nayeon couldn’t breathe, the truth refusing to leave her mouth. “That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t it?” Yeri asked sadly. “I like you Nayeon, but we would never work. You and I are on different levels.”

She went to leave, and something told Nayeon this was the last time.

“I love you!”

Yeri paused, turning back around. Nayeon stood there, vulnerable and open, unsure of what to say next. If only she could really see the future, she’d know what the right path would be. Instead, she was floundering in the dark.

“You’ve known me four days.” Yeri replied.

“I still-”

“Do you even know what age I am?”

“What does that-”

“I’m eighteen.”

Nayeon froze.

“You… you told me…”

“I told you I was an adult, which I am.” Yeri smiled bitterly. “You mentioned yesterday that you were twenty one. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I had a feeling you’d see it differently.”

She was eighteen. She might be younger than Chaeyoung, younger than Tzuyu. Nayeon felt like throwing up.

“You don’t have to look so disgusted. We just made out a lot, we didn’t even sleep together.”

Eighteen. God, how had Nayeon not realised before this? She felt like the biggest idiot in the world. She’d been running around with a damn teenager. Had Yeri even finished school yet?

Yeri went to leave again. This time, Nayeon didn’t stop her.

She hesitated at the door, and Nayeon didn’t have enough energy left to feel hopeful.

“Do you have friends? From before the lightning strike, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Nayeon said dully.

“That’s good.” Yeri nodded. “At least you have some people that know who you are without the power. Keep them close, ok?”

Nayeon didn’t reply, and when Yeri left she didn’t rewind.

The next day, she robbed a museum for the hell of it. She ignored Jihyo’s angry texts, and it was only when Tzuyu showed up to help arrest her that Nayeon finally started to really have fun.

She never told them why she’d started stealing. Yeri’s family must have had good lawyers, because her involvement in it was never made public. None of Nayeon’s friends even knew Yeri existed. Nayeon wondered if she should feel wronged, but all she felt was numb.

Because in the end, Yeri was right. Even with the limit of two minutes, Nayeon was just too powerful.

* * *

Sana wasn’t Yeri. Other than being mischievous spirits, they weren’t anything alike.

But the situations were a little too similar for Nayeon to be comfortable with. Which was why she called Jihyo over to help while Sana sat inside one of the hotel’s conference rooms, arguing with Momo and Mina. Nayeon couldn’t hear most of their talk, but sometimes they would raise their voices loud enough for her to catch a snippet of it.

“You kept telling me to stan LOONA! I still don’t know what that means!”

“You could have just googled it Momo!”

“I didn’t think of that!”

“If you stanned LOONA you probably would have thought of that.”

“Sana!”

Their voices dipped back down, and Nayeon was left with absolutely no clue if things were going well or not. Someone tapped her shoulder and she whirled around, relaxing when she saw it was Jihyo.

Then she saw who else she’d brought with her and her relief vanished.

“What, did you get stuck with babysitting duty?”

Tzuyu and Chaeyoung rolled their eyes, creepily in sync.

“You told me it was an emergency, so I figured I should bring Tzuyu.” Jihyo explained. “But Tzuyu wouldn’t leave without Chaeyoung because she thought this was a diversion tactic to lure her out so that you could kidnap Chae.”

“Wow, that’s awfully overprotective of her. Chaeyoung, don’t you feel smothered by that?”

Tzuyu looked murderous, but at least messing with them took some of Nayeon’s attention away from her girlfriend’s big drama.

“Actually, I’m here to stop Tzuyu from killing you, and right now I’m thinking it’s a good thing I came.”

“Interesting, so you both think you’re in control of each other. Doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship to me.”

“Nayeon.” Jihyo stepped between them before Tzuyu swung at her. “What’s the emergency?”

Oh right. That thing Nayeon was trying to avoid thinking about.

“Sana’s friends came over from Japan.”

“Momo and Mina?” Jihyo gasped. “They’re here?”

“Calm down, you can ask for an autograph later. I think they’re trying to convince Sana to go back home with them.”

“Oh.” Jihyo looked far too understanding. “Do you think she’ll agree to leave?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure.” Nayeon shrugged, trying to appear breezy but probably coming off as heavily in denial. “But if she does choose to leave I don’t want to be alone when it happens. I know you have rehearsals but-”

“Of course I’ll stay with you.” Jihyo wrapped her arms around Nayeon, and Nayeon let herself be comforted for all of two seconds.

“So, if this is the emergency should Tzuyu and I just go?”

Jihyo stepped back and Nayeon turned to glare at Chaeyoung.

“Is it just me or have you gotten shorter?”

“Jihyo.” Chaeyoung said pleadingly. “Let Tzuyu push her through one wall, just one!”

“I’ll settle for shoving her through a door.” Tzuyu begged. “It doesn’t even have to be locked.”

Jihyo looked like she might actually be considering it, but thankfully the conference room door opened before Nayeon ended up getting slammed into something. She still had bruises from where Sana had shoved her against the wall, not that she minded that in the slightest.

Her relief faded when Mina emerged, teary eyed, and ran off to the left.

“Is she ok?” Jihyo asked, familiar compassion flashing in her eyes.

“I’ll go after her.” Tzuyu said. “Try to stop Nayeon from… being Nayeon until I get back.”

Nayeon didn’t even respond to that, because she was genuinely worried about what was happening in there. She knew Sana and her friends had issues, but if Mina was crying things were much worse than she had thought.

There was nothing Nayeon could actually do about it. Sana had asked her to let her explain everything to her friends, and Nayeon had agreed. She hadn’t expected it to go down like this, but hey, at least she had a good distraction now.

“Well, well, well.” she smirked at Chaeyoung. “Your girlfriend’s not here to protect you anymore. Not so tough now, are you shorty?”

Chaeyoung kicked her in the shins.

“Ow.” Nayeon hopped up and down on one leg. “Ow ow ow, how come it hurts so much? Fuck, I regret everything!”

“That’s nice to hear.” Chaeyoung said smugly, while Jihyo just smiled and shook her head fondly.

The noise level in the room picked up, and everyone looked concerned.

“Are they ok?” Jihyo asked.

Nayeon hesitated, then thought _fuck it._ She walked over and pulled open the door.

“You told me you were fine with us, even though I would have backed down if you still loved her!”

“This isn’t about me loving her first! I was fine when you two got together, but not when you started ignoring me and making me a constant third wheel!”

“What? I didn’t do that!”

“Yes you did! You’re my best friend and you didn’t even realise how shitty you were making me feel! You still don’t get why I left and you’re here asking me to come back!”

They both stopped yelling, turning to look at Nayeon. She clicked her reversal light.

“Are they ok?”

Nayeon turned around and gave Jihyo a big, fake smile.

“They’re doing fine.”

Both she and Chaeyoung looked less than convinced, but Nayeon didn’t bother with further reassurances. Sana and Momo were getting louder again, and she needed a better distraction.

“I’m going after Mina. Stay here in case Sana comes out.”

“I thought she already did. She’s gay, right?”

“Haha.” Nayeon deadpanned, trying not to smile at how pleased Chaeyoung looked at her own joke. “Just watch the door.”

It was fairly easy to find Tzuyu and Mina. She just walked down the corridor, turned the corner, and they were sitting on a couch. Nayeon hung back, not wanting to disturb… whatever was happening.

Either they were talking really softly, or they were communicating using facial gestures alone. Nayeon couldn’t tell, but it looked like Tzuyu was actually comforting her pretty well. Nayeon eavesdropped for a minute, just to see if she could actually hear them. If she strained her ears, she could make out very quiet whispers, so it seemed they were actually communicating with words after all.

She slipped away then, back down the corridor. The conference room seemed quieter, but Nayeon refused to get her hopes up, especially when she saw the look on Jihyo’s face.

“What happened now?”

“I just got a text from my director.” Jihyo said, her voice cracking. “Chungha’s in the hospital.”

It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over Nayeon. Suddenly, her relationship drama didn’t seem as important anymore, not when there was possibly a much bigger threat on the loose.

“Was it her? Was it Chanmi?”

“Yeah.” Jihyo nodded sadly. “She ambushed Chungha and injured her really badly.”

“How?” Nayeon asked. “I mean, I don’t know Chungha that well, but I got the impression she could handle herself.”

“The thing is, Chanmi wasn’t alone. It’s all over the news now. This driver crashed his car and accidentally spilled a tub of radioactive waste all over her. Now she appears to have gained the power to control people’s minds, and the first thing she did was get a mob together to try and put Chungha in a coma.”

“Fucking hell.” Nayeon put her head in her hands. “Of all the ridiculous, worst possible coincidences…”

“Nayeon.” Jihyo said, a dangerous tone to her voice. “I just realised something. How do you know Chanmi and Chungha?”

Well, this day just kept getting better. Nayeon tried to smile at Jihyo, but the force of her glare told Nayeon that she was not in the mood for messing around.

“In my defence,” Nayeon put her hands up. “Sana and I are only partly responsible for this.”

For some reason, that didn’t seem to reassure Jihyo at all.


	10. First Team Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! College is starting back up so updates probably won't be as quick.  
> Also stream TT.

“Explain.” Jihyo said tightly. “I assume you and Sana were behind the hack on Chanmi?”

“Well…” Nayeon gulped. “Honestly, I’d say we were forty per cent behind it?”

“Forty per cent, huh?”

Jihyo was dangerously calm, and behind her Chaeyoung was making frantic x signs with her hands, but screw it. If Nayeon was going down she was taking them all down with her.

“Well first of all, Chanmi is completely responsible for her own downfall. It’s no one’s fault that she said all those things about everyone, and it’s definitely her own fault that she bullied you.” Nayeon shrugged. “But if we take her own accountability out of it and also ignore the dumbass driver who covered her in radioactive waste… Basically if we focus on who drove her to target Chungha and probably you next, then the blame can be evenly split between Jeongyeon, me, Sana, Chaeyoung and Chungha.”

“I see.” Jihyo said. “Chaeyoung don’t you dare run.”

Chaeyoung froze, one leg stuck out in an attempt to sneak away. She glared at Nayeon, who stuck her tongue out.

“So I’m guessing Jeongyeon told you about Chanmi, you got Chaeyoung to hack her, and then you and Sana gave that information to Chungha?”

“You’re so smart Jihyo. Have I ever mentioned how smart you are?”

Jihyo gave Nayeon a flat look, and Chaeyoung mouthed “suck-up” behind her back.

“Ok.” Jihyo said slowly. “We’re going to put aside how ridiculously overprotective you all are and the lack of respect you show me when it comes to letting me deal with my own problems, just for a moment. Right now, there’s a deranged supervillain on the loose who is an actual threat, and we’re going to need all the help we can get to stop her.”

“Hey, what do you mean an ‘actual threat’? I’m a threat! I can be threatening!” Jihyo glared at her again, and Nayeon wilted. “But, uh… not right now obviously. I’ll help you guys stop her.”

“You’re damn right you will, and it won’t just be you and Tzuyu. I’m getting the whole gang in on this.”

Jihyo strode over to the door, and before Nayeon could stop her she’d pulled it open.

“I saved up to buy that and you just ate it without even asking me!” Momo cried.

“I didn’t realise it was so expensive! Why am I not allowed to eat your food but you share it with Mina sometimes?”

“I don’t share that often with Mina, she just buys her own food instead of trying to steal mine like you do! Besides, Mina’s my girlfriend!”

“And I’m your best friend! Or at least I was!”

“Of course you’re my best friend! I’m just saying that we have a different relationship!”

“So I’m worth less to you, is that it?”

“I never said that! Why are you twisting-”

Jihyo coughed loudly, and Sana and Momo froze, both of their mouths open and ready to yell.

“I’m aware that you two are working out some issues, but we’ve got a bigger problem right now.” Jihyo walked into the centre of the room. “There’s a new supervillain on the loose and she’s coming after me. Now, since Sana is partly responsible for this she’s going to help out, aren’t you Sana?”

“I helped create a supervillain!” Sana gasped, delighted. “That’s so-”

She noticed Nayeon making throat slashing motions behind Jihyo, and her eyes widened.

“so…terrible?” she finished weakly.

“Considering Chungha’s in the hospital and I’m Chanmi’s next target, yeah, it’s terrible.” Jihyo snapped.

“Wait.” Momo looked so baffled Nayeon almost felt bad for her. “What’s going on? What happened?”

“Your best friend here helped piss off a woman who’s just gained the power to control people’s minds. Since you’re all meant to be a team, I assume you’re going to help us too?”

“O-of course.” Momo actually seemed a little intimidated, which Nayeon found very relatable. “We fought a mind controller before, remember Sana?”

“Yeah, in Kyoto last year. Mina took him down in the end, right?”

“Right.” Momo nodded. “Mina has some mind magic power of her own, and she’s got much better control than any of the bad guys. If this Chanmi woman just got her powers I know Mina can take her. She can make us all immune to Chanmi, and then if we can subdue her Mina can get into her mind and block her powers.”

“I can?”

They all turned around to face the newcomers. Chaeyoung, Mina and Tzuyu stood in the doorway, two of them looking nervous. Tzuyu just looked tired.

“Of course you can!” Sana and Momo said at the same time.

They glared at each other, and Mina seemed to shrink back behind Tzuyu.

“Alright, how about we give you three five minutes to work this out?” Jihyo suggested tactfully.

“No!” Sana stood up suddenly. “There’s no need, this is all so dumb and unnecessary. Momo thinks I left Japan and became a super villain because I’m still in love with Mina, and that’s just not true! Yeah, I used to be in love with Mina. I mean look at her, she’s great!”

Mina gave a shy smile and an awkward wave. Nayeon wondered if she should be worried, but she trusted Sana.

For the first time, she realised that thought didn’t scare her. She trusted Sana, and that wasn’t a bad thing.

“But she chose Momo and I meant it when I said I would be fine with that!” Sana continued. “What I’m not fine with is Momo acting like The Trinity means MiMo plus their third wheel!”

“I didn’t-”

“You did! You were my best friend and you changed! It hurt, and it’s still hurting because you won’t accept that you had a part in this! You keep trying to act like this is some love triangle nonsense when I’m really just sad that my two best friends got so wrapped up in each other that they basically forgot I existed!”

There was silence in the room after Sana had finished. Nayeon was tempted to break into a slow clap, but that would probably ruin the intensity of the moment.

“I’m sorry.” Mina said, the loudest and firmest words Nayeon had heard from her so far. “I really am, Sana. I had no idea you felt so left out, and that’s on me. You and Momo were so close, and I hate to think that I ruined-”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t even try to go there!” Sana pointed dramatically at Mina. “You are a loved and valued member of this team, and you becoming our friend was not a bad thing and it never will be. I mean, you’re basically the key to stopping our latest enemy, right? I appreciate your apology, but don’t you dare think this is all your fault, because it most definitely is not!”

“It’s not her fault at all!” Momo cut in angrily. “Maybe we did neglect you when we first started dating, but can you look me in the eye and tell me your hurt feelings aren’t in any way related to Mina picking me over you?”

Sana looked at Momo, and the room fell silent. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

Then, surprisingly, Sana looked over to Nayeon.

“I can.” Sana spoke clearly, looking directly into Nayeon’s eyes. “I can tell you here and now that I love you and Mina as my best friends, and that’s as far as it goes. I didn’t realise just how over her I really was until I fell in love with Nayeon, but that’s the truth. I left because you two were being crappy friends, and now I’ve found someone who makes me happier than I’ve been in a long time. You can keep denying it if you want Momo, but right now I need us to put aside the bullshit and help the girl I love protect the people she cares about.”

She turned to glare at Momo. Momo glared back. Mina sighed, and shared a knowing look with Tzuyu.

“Fine.” Momo muttered. “A temporary truce then? Save the day, then fix our own problems.”

“Deal.” Sana stuck out her hand, and she and Momo performed an intricate handshake involving claps, butt slaps and hip bumps.

“They do that every time we knock down a bad guy.” Mina whispered to Tzuyu. “I keep telling them that it gives the enemy time to get back up, but they still won’t stop.”

“Uh... guys?” Chaeyoung sounded worried. “I think Nayeon’s broken. She hasn’t moved or reacted to anything since Sana said she loved her.”

“What?” Jihyo walked over and snapped her fingers in front of Nayeon’s face. “Nayeon come on, now is not the time for this.”

Nayeon continued to stare blankly into the distance.

“I warned you guys that one of these days she’d snap.” Tzuyu said, almost cheerfully. “But no, instead of getting her the help she needs, obviously the best thing to do is let her run around being a supervillain.”

“For the last time, we are not sending Nayeon to an asylum Tzuyu. This isn’t a Batman comic.”

“But it could be!”

Jihyo looked so ready to fight that Chaeyoung ended up stepping in front of Tzuyu to shield her, not that it did much good. Normally Nayeon would jump on the opportunity to make another joke about their height difference, but… Chaeyoung wasn’t exactly wrong about her being broken right now. Nothing going on around her was registering properly. Her brain seemed to be stuck in a constant loop, repeating ‘ _the girl I love’_ over and over again.

“I’ll handle this.” Sana stepped in front of Nayeon, and smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Nayeon echoed.

“I love you.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re still in shock over that?”

“Very much.”

“I get it. I kind of dropped that on you out of nowhere. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s ok.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.” Nayeon blinked, and suddenly everything got a whole lot clearer. “It’s completely fine actually, because I love you too.”

“Oh.” Sana’s eyes shone so bright, Nayeon felt like she was looking into stars. “I was really hoping you’d say that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Great!” Chaeyoung threw her hands up in the air. “They’re both broken now!”

“Oh this is getting ridiculous.” Jihyo marched over to them and shook Nayeon’s shoulder. “Nayeon, I’m really happy for you, but there’s a maniac probably on her way here to kill me so maybe you two could celebrate this lovely milestone in your relationship by taking her down?”

“Sure.” Nayeon said, still staring at Sana. “That sounds cool.”

“Nayeon!”

“What?” Nayeon finally looked away, right into Jihyo’s impatient glare. “Oh right, Chanmi. That’s still a thing. Let’s go stop her I guess.”

“Glad that we’re all finally on the same page.” Jihyo’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Does anyone have any other drama they’d like to get out of the way?”

Chaeyoung hesitantly took a ring box out of her pocket. Tzuyu gently pushed it back in, smiling as she shook her head.

Everyone else made a mutual unspoken agreement to ignore that.

“Great.” Jihyo said, hands on her hips. “Now we can actually start making a plan.”

“A plan. Yes. Right.” Nayeon looked around the room, only now noticing how everyone was staring at her. “Well, Mina can make us immune right? But if we’re going up against an army of brainwashed civilians, then Mina probably won’t be able to free all of them. We’ll need to fight our way through to Chanmi, then keep her down until Mina can block her powers.”

“How do we do that?” Chaeyoung asked. “Momo’s got her speed, and Tzuyu’s got her strength, but the rest of us can probably only handle one on one confrontations. Even if we get Jeongyeon and Dahyun to help, who knows how many people we’ll have to fight?”

“We’ll need weapons.” Tzuyu said, sighing when she saw Nayeon’s smile. “Let me guess. You know a guy?”

“I know a guy.” Nayeon grinned.

“A guy who deals weapons to supervillains?” Jihyo’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Well there’s no way this could go wrong.”

* * *

The store Nayeon led them to was situated in a stereotypically grim alley in the worst part of town. The inside was lit by dimly green light, the walls covered with shabby wallpaper and faded posters. A strong smell of weed hung in the air, most likely coming from the boy lying on top of the counter, smoking. He turned his head and noticed the seven of them, then promptly tumbled off the counter.

“Shit! Tae we’ve got customers!”

“I’m in the bathroom! Deal with it!”

“Are you sure? Because I am _really_ high right now!”

“Just do it Kookie!”

“Right, right.” The boy spun around to face them. “Welcome to Bulletproof Boy- Nayeon! Is that you!”

“Hey Jungkook.” Nayeon smiled, stepping forward. “I’m back again for more. Brought a few friends with me this time.”

“Nice.” Jungkook grinned, clearly not noticing the way half the group was wrinkling their nose at their surroundings. “So what’ll it be this time? You want guns? Grenades? Finally going to try that rocket launcher I was telling you-”

Tzuyu stepped forward, and Jungkook’s eyes widened.

“-that we do not sell, because that would be illegal and we respect the law here. No guns or grenades in this shop, nope! Nothing that would cause a superhero to arrest us.”

“It’s fine Kook, she’s with me.” Nayeon enjoyed the look on Tzuyu’s face when she said that. “We’re working together to catch someone a lot more dangerous than you.”

“So…” Jungkook squinted suspiciously at them. “If we potentially did possibly sell some form of weaponry to you, hypothetically speaking of course. Hulk wouldn’t arrest us?”

Nayeon elbowed Tzuyu, who sighed.

“Not this time.” Tzuyu said reluctantly.

“Sweet.” Jungkook laughed. “In that case, we sell a fuckton of illegal shit here. So how about that rocket launcher Nayeon? We’ll throw in a discount for one of our best customers.”

She could feel the glares on her back, but Nayeon kept her smile perfectly friendly.

“Thanks, but I think for what we’re dealing with we need the nonlethal options. Bats, staffs, maybe some knuckle dusters. Anything that could knock a guy out without killing him.”

“Going for the head trauma, I like it.” Jungkook gestured behind him. “Blunt force weapons are down the back towards the left. Help yourself.”

Nayeon felt a certain sense of vindication at how eagerly the girls grabbed the weapons, measuring the bats and testing out the various clubs and staffs on the racks. The heroes may act like they were too good for this place, but Nayeon could see the excitement on their faces. She almost said something about it, but then she got distracted by how hot Sana looked holding a baseball bat. Sana noticed her staring and winked, tilting her head towards the supply closet to the right of them. Nayeon laughed, but shook her head. Sana’s pout almost made her reconsider, but Jihyo’s warning nudge was enough for both of them to knock it off.

Around fifteen minutes later, they exited the store, everyone smelling a lot worse and carrying at least one weapon.

“Jeongyeon and Dahyun said they’ll meet us at the hospital.” Jihyo informed them. “They think Chanmi and her goons are probably headed there to finish Chungha off.”

“Alright gays, we know what needs to be done.” Nayeon swung her bat in front of her, narrowly avoiding Chaeyoung’s head. “Let’s go beat up a bunch of brainwashed, innocent victims in the name of peace and justice!”

Sana was the only one who seemed enthused by Nayeon’s speech. She cheered, lifted her bat in the air, and then dropped it on Tzuyu’s foot.

Nayeon had the _best_ girlfriend.


	11. First Strategy Meeting

The hospital was more crowded then Nayeon had ever seen it before. Jihyo really hadn’t exaggerated about Chungha being friends with everyone, because Nayeon had to push her way past three sobbing teenagers, the entire theatre crew, a middle-aged lady, and two kpop idols she vaguely recognized before finally squeezing into Chungha’s room.

Nayeon wasn’t one for guilt. Responsibility and accountability were things she firmly avoided when possible. But seeing Chungha lying there, pale and covered in tubes… maybe she felt the tiniest bit regretful.

Chungha opened her eyes, and Nayeon forced a bright smile onto her face.

“Hey.” she said. “Looking good.”

Chungha laughed, then immediately winced as she jostled one of the many tubes around her.

“So, I owe you a thanks.” Nayeon sat down next to her. “We were worried about where Chanmi might be going next, but since everyone she might possibly target is currently in this hospital ward to visit you, we’re pretty certain she’s on her way here.”

“Happy to help.” Chungha grinned, her voice raspy. “I think I managed to hit her once before this massive guy with a steel pipe caught me in the shoulder, so all you have to do is finish her off.”

“Well we have some actual superheroes on our side now. Not just the Hulk, but Japan’s Trinity are also here to help take her down, so there’s a good chance we won’t all die today.”

“That’s always nice to hear.”

They fell silent. Nayeon tapped her feet as the heart monitor continued to beep.

“So who are you avoiding?” Chungha asked.

“Jihyo and Jeongyeon.” Nayeon didn’t even try to deny it. “Jihyo found out that I had a part in this Chanmi mess, so I threw the rest of you under the bus to make her less mad at me.”

“Thanks.”

“Relax, Jihyo can’t get angry at you when you’re in a hospital bed. But she started yelling at Jeongyeon the second we met up with her and Dahyun, so I had to get out of there before Jeongyeon realised I was the one who sold her out.”

“Oh.” Chungha tilted her head curiously. “You’re a very chaotic person, you know that?”

“Well I am a supervillain.”

“Fair point.”

“But seriously,” Nayeon reached out to take Chungha’s hand. “Is there anything I can do for you? Other than whack Chanmi over the head when I finally see her.”

“Well there is one thing. If it’s not too much to ask, can you get me the Hulk’s autograph? I’m a big fan.”

It took Nayeon three full seconds to force the smile back onto her face.

“Sure!” She said, trying not to grit her teeth. “I know Tzuyu. She’s… great. I can get you an autograph no problem.”

Chungha nodded gratefully, but when she saw the pain in Nayeon’s eyes, she cracked and started laughing.

“You’re messing with me.” Nayeon realised.

“I know Tzuyu too. She comes to visit Jihyo during rehearsals all the time.” Chungha chuckled. “From the way she’s told me it sounds like you two have a lot of history, so I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s fine.” Nayeon grinned, relieved that she didn’t actually need to beg Tzuyu for an autograph. “But pull that shit again and you’ll be next on my list of kidnap victims.”

“Nice try, but if you kidnap me you’ll piss Jihyo off even more.”

“Like you said,” Nayeon smirked. “I’m a very chaotic person.”

* * *

She found Sana and her friends entertaining a bunch of hospital patients. Nayeon had no idea why Sana saying “Sha sha sha.” was enough to make the whole ward erupt into cheers, but she didn’t question it. Her girlfriend was powerful like that.

Once the Trinity waved goodbye to the cheerful patients, they met up with the rest of the gang outside in the hallway. There was noticeable tension between Jihyo and Jeongyeon, but no one was brave enough to comment on it.

“So what’s the plan?” Nayeon asked.

“Mina’s given most of us immunity to Chanmi’s brainwashing. You’re the only one left to go.” Jihyo informed her. “We’re going to try and stop her outside the hospital, in case she tries to add the staff here to her army.”

“And when Jihyo says we’re going to stop her she means four of you who have powers.” Jeongyeon added. “One of you is going to stay behind with us nonpowered folk as the last line of defence, while four of you tackle her head on.”

“I vote Nayeon.”

“I vote Tzuyu.”

They turned and glared at each other. Those that knew them well sighed, while Momo and Mina just looked confused.

“You have the best power.” Tzuyu argued. “If we can’t stop her then you can rewind time and start evacuating everyone.”

“Or I could use my power to make sure we stop her before she reaches the hospital.”

“You’ll be surrounded by chaos, and one hit can knock you out!”

“Exactly! I’m too fragile to be the last defence, which is why it should be you.”

Tzuyu looked ready to argue some more, but they were running out of time. Nayeon glanced over at Chaeyoung, and for once, they understood each other perfectly.

_Do it._

_There’s no need-_

_We don’t have time for this Chaeyoung. I’m not staying behind, so you have to convince her._

_Fine._

“Babe.” Chaeyoung said softly, reaching over to take Tzuyu’s hand. “I’d feel better if you stayed here with us. Let Nayeon and the girls try to stop her first, and if things go wrong I know you can save us.”

Nayeon resisted the urge to fake vomit as Tzuyu melted completely. Her angry expression softened instantaneously, and when she looked into Chaeyoung’s pleading eyes, Nayeon knew it was game over.

“Fine.” Tzuyu sighed. “I’ll stay behind.”

Chaeyoung grinned and hugged her, while in the background Momo whispered to Sana to explain what had just happened.

“That’s Tzuyu’s girlfriend.” Sana whispered back. “They’re in love and it’s adorable but Nayeon pretends to hate it.”

Nayeon wanted to deny the pretend part, but Chaeyoung reached up to kiss Tzuyu’s cheek and Tzuyu smiled like she’d just been covered in a bunch of puppies.

“Maybe they’re a little cute.” she muttered to Sana.

“Alright then.” Jihyo clapped her hands. “Now that that’s decided, let’s get going. Tzuyu and us normal people will head back to Chungha and my theatre group. Nayeon, Sana, Momo and Mina, stop Chanmi as quickly as possible.”

“Do we have any idea where she is?”

“Just checked the news.” Chaeyoung had her phone out. “Looks like we were right. She’s around two blocks away, and marching straight towards the hospital.”

“Alright then, we best get going.”

“Wait!” They all paused as Chaeyoung ran up to Momo. “You’re the same Momo that does dance covers on Youtube, right?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Have you heard of the shoot dance?”

“No, what’s that?”

“Chaeyoung.” Jihyo growled. “Get over here.”

“I’ll show you later!” Chaeyoung took off, and Nayeon really did feel sorry for how confused Momo got by everything her friends did.

“Mina, you need to brainwash proof me, right?”

Mina nodded, and stepped forward. There was something strange about the girl your girlfriend used to be in love with holding your head and looking deep into your eyes, but Nayeon decided not to question it much. She just let Mina work her mojo, and after a moment Mina blinked and stepped back.

“That’s it?”

Mina nodded.

“Oh.” Nayeon tapped her head experimentally. “Cool. I thought I’d feel different.”

“The whole point is that you won’t feel different if Chanmi tries to turn you.” Momo told her. “If your head feels the same as normal than Mina’s done it right.”

“Overprotective of your girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to-”

“Before this goes any further.” Sana interrupted. “I think we should discuss leadership. I know I led us back in Japan, but things have changed, so if you think we should try something different now’s the time to say it.”

“Nayeon’s the oldest, right?” Momo said. “Why doesn’t she lead us?”

Nayeon burst out laughing. It took her a moment to realise Momo wasn’t laughing with her.

“Wait, were you serious?” Nayeon shook her head. “Thanks, but no thanks. Leadership requires way too much responsibility. I’m sticking with my role as the wildcard.”

“I think Sana should be the leader.” Mina spoke up. “We worked best that way as a trio. I’m sure it won’t be too hard for Nayeon to join in.”

“I’m cool with that.” Nayeon grinned. “I haven’t seen much of Leader Sana so far, but I think I’m going to like her.”

Sana winked, but not even their flirting could distract from the elephant in the room.

“Momo?” Sana asked, and Nayeon’s hands clenched into fists at how nervous she sounded. “You’re older than me. I know you’ve never had a problem with me leading before, but now-”

“Of course I want you to lead us Satang.” Momo’s lower lip quivered. “Remember when I almost went out to fight that electric villain with my shoes on the wrong feet? You were the one that stopped me and also reminded me that my laces were undone. If it wasn’t for you I would have died years ago!”

“Well I’m glad you can admit that at least.” Sana sniffed, but she seemed dangerously teary eyed herself.

“I’m sorry Sana. I know I’ve messed this up, but I really just want us to be a team again. Nothing would make me happier than you leading us.”

Sana’s eyes were definitely glistening, and Momo wasn’t much better. After a brief hesitation, Sana nodded.

“If you’re really ok with it, I’d be happy to lead this fight.”

Momo picked her up and hugged her then, and Nayeon smiled as Sana giggled. When she touched down on the floor again, everyone was back to being dry eyed.

“Right then, weapons check!” Sana held up her bat. “Show me your weapon and tell me how you’re going to use it.”

“I’m going to try and knock as many people unconscious as I can.” Nayeon held up her own bat. “And if I see something going wrong, I’ll rewind time to fix it.”

“I’m going to tie the brainwashed civilians up to help clear a path.” Momo held out her rope.

Mina waved her hands, and the air around them seemed to ripple.

“Excellent.” Sana grinned, waving her own bat. “I’ll direct everything, but we all know the main goal. If you see a chance, knock Chanmi out. Got it?”

“Eye eye captain!” Nayeon cheered, laughing at the embarrassed look Sana shot her.

“Ok then, move out team!”

With Sana in the lead, they started running down the hall towards the main entrance of the hospital. Nayeon was focused on not tripping or falling behind, so she was surprised when she heard the other three cheering.

“Let’s go lesbians! Here we go!”

“Let’s go!”

“Move lesbians!” Even Mina was joining in.

“What’s going on?” Nayeon had to ask.

“Huh?” Sana paused her cheering to look back at Nayeon. “You mean our chant? It’s what we do to psych ourselves up before running into situations where we’re likely to die.”

“Oh.” Nayeon said, panting slightly from all the running. “Does it work?”

“Well we haven’t died yet, have we?”

“Good point.” Nayeon took a deep breath. “Let’s go lesbians!”

“Let’s go!”

“Here we go lesbians! Here we go!”

And screaming their battle cry, they charged outside.


	12. First Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! College is hectic, and I had no internet for a few days, so this chapter might be a little disjointed, but I hope you enjoy it.

Outside the hospital, everything was hectic. Even with Momo’s super speed, it was four of them charging over a hundred of Chanmi’s brainwashed minions. Nayeon soon found herself lost in the chaos, swinging her baseball bat at anyone near her and rewinding time whenever she noticed things getting too rough.

Oddly enough, Momo was the one taking the most damage. Despite her speed and the amount of people she successfully tied up, more kept coming, and for some reason she kept getting knocked around. It finally made sense to Nayeon when she saw someone throw a knife at Mina, only for a blur to swoop by and snatch it. When Momo skidded to a stop, Nayeon saw that while she’d caught the knife, there was a small cut on her cheek.

The worst part was, she couldn’t even get annoyed at Momo for being overprotective. Mina couldn’t get hurt too badly since she was the only one who could neutralize Chanmi. So, when Nayeon saw Mina get punched in the face, she rewound time and pushed the guy in front of her into Mina’s potential attacker. Mina gave her an appreciative nod, a growing pile of slumbering bodies on the ground around her.

The battle raged on, and despite their superpowers they were slowly but surely being pushed back by the horde of bodies. Mina’s hypnotism worked well, but Sana and Nayeon could barely manage to fight back everyone that attacked them. Having the most useful power for fighting large numbers meant Momo kept taking more and more risks, and the injuries Nayeon had to rewind grew worse.

Maybe Nayeon should have seen it coming, but it still shocked her down to her core when she saw a knife go into Momo’s heart. A tall, bald man had been sneaking up behind Mina, and Momo had been the only one close enough to react in time. She’d been taking a breather after five solid minutes of zooming around the place, so when the knife came down Momo didn’t have enough energy to catch it, just enough to put herself in front of it.

Mina screamed. Sana screamed. Nayeon felt like she couldn’t breathe. The man turned towards Mina with a vicious grin, and the next thing Nayeon saw was Sana charging across to them faster than Nayeon had ever seen her run. The man barely had time to take two steps forward before Sana’s bat smashed into his skull. He fell to the ground unconscious, but Sana didn’t stop whacking him. She hit his head again and again while Mina cried out for her to stop. Again and again the bat came down, until there was nothing left of the man’s head but blood, pulp, and bone shards.

Nayeon finally remembered that it was her job to fix situations like this. With trembling fingers, she reached for her reversal light. She clicked it, and the world rewound.

The man was approaching Mina again, but this time Nayeon noticed him early enough to stop him without Momo getting involved. Nayeon ducked and weaved her way over, then pushed the nearest minion straight into him. They both went down, and she delivered a firm kick that knocked him unconscious.

Unconscious, but still very much alive.

Mina and Momo were fine, which was great, but three big burly minions were slowly starting to close in on Nayeon, which was not so great. She wasn’t sure if her bat would be enough to take them all on at once. She was still shaking from the timeline she had just fixed, but she held her bat out and glared defiantly at them. They stumbled forward like good brainwashed minions, and then suddenly all three went down, one after the other.

Nayeon saw a baseball bat hovering in the air above the body of the third one, and then the rest of Sana shimmered into visibility. She darted over to Nayeon, facing the opposite direction so that they were back to back against the minions who surrounded them.

“You ok?” Sana said, jabbing threateningly at a minion who got too brave. “You look kind of shaky.”

“Yeah.” Nayeon swallowed, pressing herself further into Sana’s back. “Bad timeline. I fixed it, but the memories are still in my head.”

“What happened?”

“Momo died.” Nayeon swung hard as the minions slowly started closing in. “Then you kind of snapped and killed the guy who stabbed her.”

“Oh.” If it wasn’t for the slight stumble in Sana’s step, Nayeon would have thought she was completely unbothered. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I already became a supervillain. If that had happened back in Japan while I was still a hero, it would be a hell of a complicated PR mess for the Trinity.”

“You mean their leader bashing a brainwashed victim’s head in because he killed Momo? Yeah, not a good luck for the heroes. It’s understandable though.”

“You think so?” Sana’s voice wasn’t quite as casual as she probably wanted it to be.

“I do.” Nayeon ducked as a glass bottle was thrown at her from the right. “If it were Jihyo or Jeongyeon, I would do the same.”

“Are you sure?” Sana glanced back at her for a second. “I can’t tell if it’s just the shock, but something seems off.”

Nayeon focused on swinging her bat left and right. She tried to make it seem like she was too busy fighting to answer, but Sana clearly didn’t buy it.

“Are you scared of me? Do you feel disturbed knowing I’m capable of that?”

“What? No!” Nayeon risked turning around for a split-second so Sana could see how sincere she was. “It was a shock, but what you did wasn’t the disturbing part. I just told you I would have done the same thing, didn’t I?”

“Then what’s up?”

Nayeon turned back around, jabbing a woman in the chin with the handle of her bat. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they were going to run out of opponents any time soon, and Sana seemed determined not to change the subject.

“If you’re not scared of me because of what I did, then…what exactly do you feel about it?”

Nayeon gulped, because Sana was far too intuitive for her own good.

“Wait… Oh wow. Oh my God.” Nayeon cringed, knowing that Sana had figured it out. “Were you… were you turned on by it?”

Nayeon didn’t answer, choosing instead to hit the nearest minion straight in the stomach.

“You were!” Sana squealed in delight. “Aw babe! If I’d known that smashing a guy’s head open with a bat would make you thirsty, we could have done so much more in the bedroom! We could have gone full BDSM, maybe I could have topped for a bit, heck we should have broken out the knives. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you were into this kind of stuff!”

“I’m not!” Nayeon protested. “Or at least, I didn’t think I was. Look, can we not talk about this right now? Yes, I’m kinky, but I have limits.”

“True, but apparently your limits aren’t as clear as you thought.”

Nayeon’s next swing was a tad bit overly aggressive. Sana just giggled. She reached over to kiss Nayeon on the cheek, then faded out of visibility. The confused minions stood there blinking for a few seconds, and then they started falling as Sana’s invisible bat took them out one by one.

Nayeon focused on clearing her own half of the circle. She didn’t move as quickly as Sana, partly due to her lack of invisibility, and partly due to how distracted she was. Sana killing a man had made her feel… things. Nayeon had been well prepared to shove those embarrassingly horny feelings into a box in the darkest corner of her mind, but no, Sana just had to figure it out. Damn her girlfriend for being so perceptive.

She was almost grateful that more and more brainwashed civilians kept joining the fight. _Almost_ being the key word, because while the distraction was great, they kept getting pushed back towards the hospital doors and Momo was running out of rope to tie people up with. None of them had even been able to get a good look at Chanmi. She was surrounded by too many minions, and at this point their main goal had gone from getting Mina in front of her to simply staying alive against the mass of people swarming them.

“How does she keep getting more minions?” Momo yelled, kicking two of them away from Sana.

“Civilians come running to see what’s happening, then she sucks them in.” Nayeon whacked one who grabbed Mina’s arm. “I’d say she’s up to three hundred by now.”

“Well that’s-” Sana brought her bat down on another four. “-great! I don’t think we can keep this up for much longer.”

“I’d suggest reasoning with Chanmi, but I don’t think she’s a very rational person, and that’s coming from me.” Nayeon sighed. “What’s the plan boss?”

Sana seemed to glow a little at the title, which Nayeon thought was adorable, but again, not a good time for that.

“I think our only option is to retreat to the hospital and try to barricade the doors. Momo, can you get as much stuff as you can to put against the doors? Mina, you need to create an illusion to buy Momo time.”

“Sure thing, Leader.” Momo grinned.

Mina nodded and closed her eyes. Seconds later the minions in front of them began to scream and scramble backwards. The four of them used the chaos to run towards the hospital entrance. By the time Nayeon slipped inside, Momo had already began to barricade the doors with chairs, beds, desks, and even a few wheelchairs.

“Maybe if I pretend to cry she’ll get distracted gloating, and the rest of you can ambush her.” Nayeon suggested, pushing another table up against the doors. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m a pretty amazing actress.”

“I think we’ll stick with fighting her, but it’s always good to have a few back up plans.” Sana smiled at her, before grabbing the wheelchair Momo chucked at them.

Mina’s illusion seemed to have worn off, because Chanmi’s army began to charge over, slamming themselves against the doors of the hospital. The barricade held, but there was a tiny gap between the doors that was slowly widening. Nayeon, Sana and Mina targeted anyone who managed to squeeze through the gap, while Momo kept finding new furniture to strengthen the barricade.

“How many spare beds does this hospital have?” Nayeon couldn’t help but ask, after Momo threw another one against the doors. “I didn’t realise it was this empty.”

“I explained it was an emergency, and some people were willing to give their beds and double up.”

“You stole beds from sick old ladies?” Nayeon faked a dramatic gasp. “What kind of hero are you? Did you toss people out of these wheelchairs as well?”

If Momo wasn’t so busy trying to keep the four of them alive, she’d probably stop to yell at Nayeon. As it was, she just glared at her, and then zipped off to grab another desk.

“This is exhausting.” Nayeon whined at Sana, shoving another man away from the doors. “Is this what being a hero is like? No wonder you quit! I haven’t been this overwhelmed since the time rabbits took over my secret base.”

“Rabbits did what now?”

“Back when I was still figuring out what I wanted my supervillain image to be like, I tried to train an army of rabbits to use against Tzuyu, but they got free somehow and swarmed my base.” Nayeon explained. “I fought back, but they won the war, mostly because I couldn’t bear to hurt them. In the end I surrendered the base to them. It’s over on the other side of Seoul, so I haven’t been there in a while, but they’re probably still knocking around in it.”

Sana laughed, while Mina looked confused, probably trying to figure out if Nayeon was serious or not. Nayeon just winked at her, then went back to smacking a guy’s arm with her bat.

Suddenly, there was a rumbling sound. Momo skidded to a stop next to them, and all four of them looked around, trying to figure out what was happening.

“It sounds like footsteps.” Sana said. “But how-”

Nayeon looked over to their left, and saw a bright red door with a green sign above it. The emergency exit.

“Shit.” Nayeon sighed. “Did anyone remember to barricade the other doors?”

Three pairs of wide eyes pretty much confirmed her fear, but she only had a second to kick herself over such a rookie mistake before the red door burst open, and more minions charged through.

Honestly, at this point it was pretty obvious that they were going to lose. Nayeon felt she deserved some credit for not dropping her bat and running away, but all her bravery got her was three minions slamming her up against the wall while she struggled to grab her reversal light from her pocket.

“Don’t let her grab her time stick!” Nayeon finally got a good look at Chanmi, who looked exactly the same as always apart from her glowing green eyes. “If she gets that she can rewind time and stop us from getting in!”

“It’s called a reversal light!” Nayeon snapped, as the minions struggled to keep her against the wall.

The object in question fell out of her pocket as they shook her around, and another brainwashed civilian quickly reached down to snatch it up. Another three minions had grabbed Sana, while twenty more kept Momo pinned to the ground. Mina lay next to her, unconscious. All in all, things did not look good for them.

There was no other option left. It was time for Nayeon to bust out her acting skills.

She started to cry, and while the minions looked slightly uncomfortable, Chanmi just stared at her, unimpressed.

“Are your fake tears supposed to make me feel bad? You’re a terrible actress.”

“Excuse me!” Nayeon gasped, immediately switching from sad to offended. “I am an _incredible_ actress. I once made Tzuyu believe I only had three days left to live, and I was so convincing she even got the chief of police to pardon me!”

“That’s because the Hulk is a naïve little girl with a pure heart.” Chanmi smirked. “It’s the only reason you’ve survived this long Nayeon. But now that a real supervillain is here, your time is up. I’m going to defeat Tzuyu, kill Jihyo and the rest of your friends, and then I’ll have some fun with you and your little girlfriend.”

“Don’t you touch them.” Nayeon growled as Chanmi began to walk away. “You hear me? You lay a finger on any of them and I’ll kill you myself, you sick, twisted psycho!”

Chanmi froze, and Nayeon realised that she was probably going to die now. That belief got stronger when Chanmi turned to face her with a sadistic smile on her face.

“You know what? Bring all four of them along. Let them watch as I kill their friends.”

Well, that was better than immediate death. Still, Nayeon kept quiet as they were dragged along, not wanting to push her luck. That didn’t stop her from struggling against the minions who were gripping her arms tightly. Unfortunately, it looked like Chanmi had brainwashed a whole gym of bodybuilders on her way here, because neither Nayeon, Sana or Momo could break free.

More brainwashed people ran ahead of them, and hospital workers came running out to join them as Chanmi waved her hands left and right. Suddenly, up ahead of them, Nayeon heard the sound of yelling. She assumed that meant they’d ran into Tzuyu, but Chanmi continued marching forward, unbothered.

When they finally reached the ward, Nayeon’s heart sank at the sight in front of her. Tzuyu was slowly but surely being pushed into a storage room by over fifty of the biggest, beefiest minions. They piled onto her, and for every one she shook off two more took their place. She made eye contact with Nayeon, and for once there was no animosity between them. They were both panicking and trying their best to break free, but neither of them could succeed.

Chanmi continued walking down the hallway. Chungha’s room was located at the end of it, and through the window in the wall Nayeon could see Jihyo, Jeongyeon and Dahyun trying to keep everyone else calm.

“This is just too easy.” Chanmi laughed. “All your powers just can’t beat the sheer number of people I can control. Is there anyone left to stop me?”

“Me.”

Everyone turned to look at where the new voice had come from. Chaeyoung stepped out from Chungha’s room, and walked up so that she was in front of them. Nayeon could see that she was shaking, but she kept her head up and glared at Chanmi.

“You’re going to leave us alone now. Go home, get some help, and let these people go.”

“What is she doing?” Sana hissed. “Does she have a secret superpower that I don’t know about?”

“No.” Nayeon felt her stomach sink. “She doesn’t.”

Chaeyoung walked closer, and Chanmi laughed.

“You expect to stop me?”

“That’s right.” Chaeyoung’s voice was as shaky as her hands, but she still kept walking. “Because you’re attacking my girlfriend, and my best friend is in the room behind me and you’re probably going to hurt her too. Not to mention, nearly everyone else here is a good person who doesn’t deserve to be hurt by you. Heck, even Nayeon and Sana aren’t really that bad.”

Chaeyoung was now face to face with Chanmi, and Nayeon was struggling hard to escape. If she could just reach the minion holding her reversal light…

“So walk away.” Chaeyoung stared straight into Chanmi’s eyes. “Now.”

Chanmi stared back. She smirked.

Then she smacked Chaeyoung’s face with the back of her hand, and Chaeyoung fell to the ground.

A sudden hush filled the hall. No one spoke, and not even a heart monitor beeped. It felt like every single person in the ward was holding their breath. No one knew why, but everyone could tell that Chanmi had just done something very, very wrong.

From behind them, Nayeon heard someone growl. A deep, terrifying, angry growl.

There were screams, and she whirled around to see all fifty of the minions keeping Tzuyu in place go flying. Tzuyu raced past her, and before Nayeon could blink she had grabbed Chanmi and slammed her against the wall. Chanmi screamed, but Tzuyu only pulled her back and slammed her harder, causing Chanmi to completely smash through the wall.

Then another wall.

Then another wall.

The men holding Nayeon stumbled, and she found that she could easily break free. All around her, Chanmi’s former minions were dropping to the floor, unconscious. Nayeon scooped up her reversal light, then ran over to Sana and Momo, who were checking on Mina.

“She’s breathing. I think they just knocked her out.” Sana sighed in relief. “She should wake up any minute now.”

“Tzuyu! Hey,Tzuyu!” That was Chaeyoung, who appeared completely fine apart from the blood on her lip. “Babe, I’m ok! You can calm down now!”

Tzuyu had stopped slamming Chanmi through walls, and was now slamming Chanmi’s head against the floor. Chanmi was very much unconscious at this stage, but Tzuyu didn’t show any signs of slowing down.

“Tzuyu we need her alive!” Nayeon yelled. “All the brainwashed people fell unconscious at the same time she did, which means if Chanmi dies so does everyone under her spell!”

Tzuyu stopped then. She let Chaeyoung pull her up off Chanmi, and Nayeon was able to see properly just how terrible the supervillain looked.

Nayeon thought about all the times she’d deliberately pissed Tzuyu off, and then she thought that if she’d pushed too far, maybe that could have been her on the floor. Tzuyu did threaten to shove Nayeon through walls a lot, but this was the first time Nayeon had seen what that would actually do to her.

It wasn’t pretty. A lot of blood, definitely a few broken bones, and Chanmi’s face was a mess. It was a good thing they were in a hospital, because Chanmi would need a lot of doctors to help to fix her… everything, really.

Nayeon gulped. Maybe after this she should give Tzuyu a break, go bother another superhero for a while.

“Mina’s awake!” Sana cheered.

Mina got to her feet and immediately ran past Nayeon, jumping through the Chanmi-shaped holes Tzuyu had left in the wall. She crouched down beside Chanmi, grabbed her head, and closed her eyes. After a minute, she stood up and nodded.

“That’s it?” Nayeon looked around. “Well that was anticlimactic.”

“Two mind powers fighting each other isn’t exactly a very flashy battle.” Momo rolled her eyes. “The important thing is that Chanmi can’t use her power anymore.”

“And how do we know that Mina’s magic actually worked?”

As if on cue, Chanmi’s minions started waking up. Some looked shocked, others seemed sleepy and a few were blinking really fast. They all looked very confused, which Nayeon assumed was a good sign.

“Hey random citizen!” Nayeon yelled, and the man closest to her jumped and looked over. “You don’t feel like attacking us to assist a woman named Chanmi, do you?”

“Uh, no?” The poor man looked even more confused. “What’s going on? What happened here?”

“Long story. Someone else will tell you.” Nayeon smiled and reached out to grab Sana’s hands. “Well, it looks like the day is saved and our work here is done.”

“Go team!” Sana cheered.

Then her face went pale, and before Nayeon could reach out to catch her, Sana crumpled onto the hospital floor.


	13. First Friend Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long. Writers block is The Worst. Hope you enjoy it!

There were two seconds when Nayeon’s whole body went into shock. It didn’t make sense. They’d saved the day, beaten the bad guy, so now it was supposed to be smooth sailing, right? So then why was Sana crumpled on the ground?

Then it truly hit her that Sana was _crumpled on the ground_ , and she immediately fell to her knees beside her.

“Someone call a doctor!” Nayeon screamed, cradling Sana in her arms. “My girlfriend just collapsed! Please, help!”

There was a whooshing sound, and suddenly Momo was right next to her.

“Put her down!” Momo yelled. “She needs to be turned on her side!”

“What?” Nayeon gently lowered Sana to the ground. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s anaemic.” Momo grabbed Sana’s arms and crossed them, Mina arrived behind her, grabbing Sana’s leg and raising it in the air. “She’s breathing. That’s good. Has she been getting enough iron?”

“I…I don’t…” Nayeon stuttered, her mind spinning. “I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping track. I didn’t realise…”

“Aren’t you two supposed to be in love?” Momo’s face was full of scorn, and Nayeon felt her anger surge. “What kind of soulmate girlfriend are you if you didn’t even know-”

“Momo.” Mina said warningly.

Nayeon stood up and shoved Momo, her blood boiling. Mina stopped fussing with Sana’s jacket and watched them, concerned.

“Just fuck off ok?” Nayeon snapped. “I can handle this. I don’t need you standing around sneering at me.”

“As if I’m going to leave my best friend alone with you.” Momo pushed right back. “You obviously have no idea what you’re doing here, so let us help Sana. If you want to be useful go find a doctor.”

“Like hell I’m letting you take care of her.” Nayeon snarled. “You go get the doctor. Someone she trusts should stay with her.”

“You really want to talk trust?”

“Momo.” Mina interrupted again. “You’re the fastest. Go find a doctor.”

Momo looked tempted to shove Nayeon again, but Mina gave her a warning glare and she took off. Nayeon squatted back down, keeping her eyes on the steady rise and fall of Sana’s chest. She grabbed Sana’s leg, trying to nudge Mina away.

“You can go now Mina. I’ve got this under control.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to us.” Mina’s voice was far too understanding. “But if you really love Sana, and I know you do, you won’t risk her getting hurt for the sake of your wounded pride. Let me help.”

Nayeon wanted to argue, but Mina had the same face Jihyo wore every time she knew she was right and Nayeon was wrong. So, she sighed, and let Mina hold the leg while she kept Sana turned on her side.

“I think that was the most we’ve ever talked.” she joked half-heartedly. “I must have been seriously freaking out to get you to speak so much.”

Mina smiled, and Nayeon relaxed a little. She may be Momo’s girlfriend and Sana’s former crush, but Nayeon actually liked Mina. She reminded Nayeon a bit of Jihyo, only with superpowers and a lot less noisy.

There was a whooshing sound Nayeon was growing to hate, and then Momo dumped a very confused doctor onto the ground next to them. Mina gave the poor man a sympathetic smile.

“Our friend has just fainted. We think it’s due to her anaemia. Is it possible you could take a look at her?”

The doctor looked at all the anxious faces staring expectantly at him, then down at Sana’s unmoving body. He sighed reluctantly.

“Follow me. The latest supervillain attack has thrown everything into chaos around here, but I’ll find her a room.” He paused to squint suspiciously at Nayeon. “Aren’t you a supervillain? You weren’t behind this, were you?”

“Wow.” Nayeon scoffed. “As if I’d ever do something as evil as attack a hospital. For your information, I helped save the day.”

“Actually, we both failed.” Momo grumbled. “Tzuyu was the only one that did any damage, and Mina saved everyone from the mind control.”

“Oh, are you friends of the Hulk?” The doctor surprised them all with a bright smile. “In that case, I’ll get some nurses to help here immediately!”

He hit his pager, and stopped a nurse with an empty bed as it was wheeled by. Together the nurse, Nayeon and Momo lifted Sana carefully onto the bed, and then began to push it down the corridor, following the doctor’s directions.

“Wait, you think Tzuyu and I are friends?” Nayeon laughed, then froze at the twin glares Momo and Mina were sending her. “You are… absolutely correct! We’re besties, Hulk and I. I’m going to be maid of honour at her wedding and everything.”

“The Hulk’s getting married?” The doctor gasped.

“Maybe.” Nayeon winked. “Help my friend, and I’ll drop a few more secrets.”

Momo did not look impressed, but Nayeon’s persuasion proved effective. Within five minutes Sana had two nurses and another doctor at her bedside. The three girls were ushered out of the room, with a promise to let them back in as soon as Sana was ready for visitors. Part of Nayeon wanted to fight them in order to stay by her girlfriend’s side, but a part of her was glad for this alone time with Sana’s friends.

They had things to hash out.

“Alright.” Nayeon squared her shoulders and glared straight at Momo. “You and I are going to talk, and when Sana wakes up there won’t be any problems left between us.”

“Fine by me.” Momo shrugged.

“Great. Also, we need a mediator.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Sana’s the one that matters here, so I want to do this right. It’s not going to be us yelling at each other for ten minutes then storming out. We’re going to fix this shit.”

“Fine.” Momo rolled her eyes. “Mina can mediate.”

“Mina can definitely be here for this, but we need someone who’s actually unbiased.”

“What?” Momo scoffed. “How is Mina biased?”

“…She’s your girlfriend.”

“Huh.” Momo looked over to Mina, who shrugged and nodded. “You do have a point there.”

Nayeon tried not to regret this. She played dumb all the time to irritate people, but Momo seemed worryingly sincere, like she genuinely hadn’t realized that Mina being her girlfriend would cause her to be biased.

“So, I suggest we get Jihyo to mediate.”

“Your friend? No way! How is that any better than Mina?”

“She’s pretty pissed at me right now, so I doubt she’ll take my side unless she really thinks I’m right.”

“She’s still too close.” Momo shook her head. “If you really want a mediator, we need someone who isn’t close to either of us.”

“How about Chaeyoung or Tzuyu?” Nayeon suggested.

“Aren’t they your friends?”

“Tzuyu is the opposite of a friend! She’s my archnemesis!” Nayeon protested, but then she paused, thinking hard. “You’re kind of right though, that would make her biased. Chaeyoung is the better bet. I talk to her a lot during kidnappings, and she might even consider me a friend, but with all the shit I’ve done she definitely won’t be biased.”

Momo and Mina still looked sceptical, but Nayeon wasn’t about to drag a random stranger into this. She took off back down the corridor to try and find Chaeyoung, then skidded to a halt when she finally saw her.

“What?” Momo bumped into her at her sudden stop. “Why aren’t you talking to her?”

“Do you want to be the one to try and tear those two away from each other?”

Momo looked over at Chaeyoung, who was curled in Tzuyu’s lap on the floor, pouting as her girlfriend fussed over her cut lip. Then she looked to the right, where a Chanmi shaped hole in the wall was still visible. Nayeon heard her gulp, and knew her point had been made.

“So what now?” Momo sighed. “Who else can we get?”

Nayeon looked down to the end of the corridor, where people were still milling around inside Chungha’s room. A flash of strawberry blonde hair caught her eye, and she grinned.

“I know just who we need.”

Ignoring Momo and Mina’s confusion, she took off towards the room. Inside, she elbowed past three people, almost freaked out when she realised she’d bumped into the famous idol Sunmi (seriously, what the heck was she doing here?), and then resisted the urge to ask for an autograph. Finally, she laid eyes on her target, who was gently poking a sleeping Chungha’s cheek with the end of a pen.

“Dahyun.”

Dahyun jumped and dropped the pen, scrambling away from the bed.

“Oh hey Nayeon! I wasn’t-”

“Come with me. I need you.”

Dahyun’s expression quickly switched from guilty to concerned. She let Nayeon grab her arm and pull her out of the room.

“What’s wrong? Are Chaeyoung and Tzuyu ok?”

“They’re fine.”

Dahyun suddenly stopped walking, causing Nayeon to stumble.

“You’re not kidnapping me again, are you?”

“No Dahyun.” Nayeon tried to make her smile seem reassuring, but judging by how Dahyun stepped back it didn’t work. “I’m not here to kidnap you. I just need you for something very, very important.”

Five minutes later, Dahyun stood awkwardly in the centre of a private waiting room. Nayeon sat on the left, Momo and Mina on the right. Outside, the hustle and bustle of the hospital could be heard, doctors and nurses walking by, family’s chattering about the wild attack. But inside the waiting room, the atmosphere was positively icy.

To be fair, the air conditioning in this waiting room appeared to be malfunctioning, so the cold they felt wasn’t just from the tension between Nayeon and Momo.

Tension that wasn’t going to exist for much longer, because Sana deserved better and Nayeon was determined to give it to her.

“Ok.” She took a breath, trying to reign in her anger. “Let me start by asking you this. What is your fucking _problem_? I get that I’m a supervillain, but you don’t even know me!”

“I don’t need to know you! You’re a supervillain!” Momo yelled back. “The stuff bothering Sana could have been worked out among the three of us, but then you came along and now… Now she’s like a whole different person!”

“I don’t believe you.” Nayeon said flatly. “You’re Sana’s best friend, but just because she fell for me suddenly you can’t recognise her? That’s bullshit.”

“Nayeon’s got a point.” Dahyun declared, causing Momo to glare indignantly at her.

 “Objection!” Momo stuck her hand in the air. “Nayeon’s mediator is clearly biased!”

“Uh… I don’t think this is a court. Is this a court?” Dahyun looked over at Nayeon, who shook her head. “And anyway, I’m not biased, she just said something true. So, uh… overruled? I guess?”

Momo sighed, and Nayeon stuck her tongue out. Mina looked like she was screaming internally even more than she usually did.

“Fine, she’s still Sana, but if this thing between you two is serious then it makes no sense to me. The three of us put people like you in jail for years and suddenly Sana’s cool with being a criminal? So Sana’s either just blowing off steam, or she’s seriously in love with you and willing to ignore her morals for it. I’m pretty sure she’s not really serious, but both options suck.”

“Wow.” Nayeon laughed, trying not to show how hurt she felt. “It’s really that hard for you to believe Sana loves me, huh? You superheroes and your rigid moral codes. The world isn’t as black and white as you want it to be. Sana’s the one who robbed the bank when we met, she’s the one that instigated every burglary and kidnapping we’ve done together. You can pretend I’m the bad girl who she fell in with for a rebellious phase, but no one else believes you. Isn’t that right, Mina?”

Mina looked like a deer in the headlights, but when Momo looked back at her, she shook her head sadly.

“I’m sorry Momoring, but I don’t think it’s Nayeon’s fault Sana did any of this.”

The look of raw hurt on Momo’s face made Nayeon wince, even though she was still mad at her. Nayeon expected Momo to fight back, so she was surprised when Momo’s face crumpled.

“I know.” Momo whispered. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I drove her away, and now she’s gone.”

“Hey now, calm down with the dramatics.” Nayeon waved her arms, unsure of how exactly to comfort the crying girl. “Sana’s not gone forever, she’s just down the hall. You’ll probably see her really soon.”

“But she won’t be coming back with us, will she?” Momo asked, trembling so badly that Mina wrapped her arms around her. “She’s a villain now, and she doesn’t want to change, does she? We’re enemies now.”

“It doesn’t have to be that serious.” Nayeon had no idea how she’d gone from yelling at Momo to reassuring her, but it felt very weird. “Tzuyu’s a superhero and I’m her worst enemy, but we still have the same friends and hang out at least once a month at Jihyo’s. Heroes and villains don’t have to hate each other, I mean it’s not like Sana is truly evil now or anything.”

“It’s true.” Dahyun piped up. “Nayeon and Tzuyu love each other.”

“Well now I wouldn’t go that far.”

“They just banter a lot because of the whole hero and villain thing. It’s a weird kind of friendship, and none of us really understand it to be honest, but it works for them. Trust me, there’s no actual hatred there.”

“Come on, there’s definitely a little hatred. I’ve worked so hard for it!”

“Nayeon.” Dahyun smiled at her with all the patience of a woman dealing with her incredibly cantankerous grandma. “Could you just shut up for two seconds please? I’m trying to let Momo know that she doesn’t have to worry about her friendship with Sana.”

“Well that’s obvious.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. “I’ve only known Sana a few days, and it’s obvious she loves you both so very much. You can be heroes and we can be villains, and except for a few lies to the media, nothing will change. Villains don’t have to be evil, despicable people, case in point.”

Dahyun coughed something that sounded like ‘debatable’, but Nayeon ignored her, keeping her eyes on Momo. She wasn’t crying anymore, and she gave Nayeon a watery smile.

“I’m sorry.” Momo mumbled. “This fight with Sana is so messy and scary, I’m not dealing very well.”

“Eh.” Nayeon shrugged. “We all have bad days.”

“I guess… I’ve just never met a supervillain that doesn’t want to hurt us.” Momo sighed. “When we found out what Sana was doing here I kind of blamed you for everything, because that was easier then looking at what was wrong with Sana and me. I’m sorry Nayeon. For a supervillain you’re… kind of ok.”

“I’m amazing.” Nayeon informed her. “And don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, you and Sana will be fine.”

Momo’s smile became a little brighter, and the tension in the room slowly faded away. After a moment of peaceful silence, Dahyun coughed awkwardly.

“So… can I go now?”

“I think we’re done here.” Nayeon looked at Momo and Mina, who nodded. “Thank you Dahyun. You were surprisingly helpful.”

“That was almost a compliment. I’m touched.” Dahyun opened the door. “You know, I still have that photo of you and Tzuyu curled up asleep together. I bet the press would love that.”

“Try it and you’re dead.” At the alarmed looks from Momo and Mina, Nayeon frantically waved her hands. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding! The worst thing I ever did to her was fill her apartment up with foam.”

“You still haven’t paid the cleaning bills for that by the way.” Dahyun called as she left.

Nayeon was about to yell a reply, but a nurse stepped into the waiting room with a smile on her face.

“You’re waiting to see Minatozaki Sana, yes?”

All three of them nodded.

“She’s awake now. One visitor at a time please.”

They all looked at each other. Mina nudged Momo, and Momo nodded, gesturing towards the door.

“Nayeon, do you want to go first?”

“Are you sure?” Nayeon asked, surprised by the unexpectedly quick rise in friendliness.

“Yeah.” Momo slipped her hand into Mina’s. “I think we need to talk about things before we talk to her, and I’m pretty sure she’d want you to be the first one.”

“Cool.” Nayeon tried to control her wide grin. “Cool cool cool.”

* * *

Sana’s was asleep when Nayeon sat down next to the bed. She gently took her girlfriend’s hand, smiling when Sana’s eyes fluttered open.

Sana smiled back, squeezing Nayeon’s hand.

“I was hoping it would be you.”

Nayeon didn’t really have a good response to that. She just brought Sana’s hand up so she could kiss it, and then kept holding on to it as Sana slowly got her bearings.

“So,” Sana said, once she’d taken a good look around the hospital room. “What did I miss?”

Nayeon opened her mouth, closed it, and then smiled.

“Nothing much. A little bit of panic, a lot of waiting around and talking. I managed to convince Momo that I wasn’t an evil demon intent on luring you to the dark side.”

“That’s good.” Sana snuggled into her pillow. “I think they gave me drugs or something. I’m so sleepy.”

“You can sleep if you want.” Nayeon rubbed circles into the back of Sana’s hand. “I don’t mind just sitting here. It’s been a long day.”

“Very long.” Sana agreed with a yawn. “We’ll talk later, yeah? Sleep now.”

“Sleep now.” Nayeon agreed, reaching up to smooth Sana’s hair back off her face. “I’ll protect you in case there’s another supervillain attack, or if a nurse tries to give you a shot or something.”

“No needles.” Sana mumbled, her face almost completely buried in the pillow. “Night night, Nayeon. Love you.”

“Yeah.” Nayeon forced herself to sound casual despite the lump in her throat, overwhelmed by just how much she felt for this girl. “Love you too.”


	14. First Archnemesis Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know when you have lots of free time but can't write a thing but then exams start hitting and suddenly you have the energy to update fics? Yeah.

Nayeon paced up and down outside Sana’s hospital room. She’d stayed in there as long as she could, but with Sana sleeping peacefully she couldn’t ignore Momo and Mina anxiously waiting outside. Part of her wanted to just be selfish and hog Sana to herself, but Nayeon was trying to be friendlier with Momo and deep down she knew Sana needed to talk to her friends. Plus, Mina had somehow found the time to make a twelve-page PowerPoint presentation on her phone detailing how the trio were going to fix their friendship, and Nayeon was both impressed and intimidated.

So here she was, trying not to peek in through the door to see what was going on. She knew Sana was awake, and she knew that they were talking. She also knew that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, because last time she accidentally glanced in as she paced by, Mina was crying. Her tears looked like they were made of diamonds, and that distracted Nayeon for a moment as she wondering if crying diamonds was another part of Mina’s power.

Probably not. Who’d become a superhero if they could get rich that easily? She most likely just had pretty tears, unlike Nayeon who’s crying face made her friends burst out laughing even when she was seriously upset. Assholes.

Nayeon loved them.

And she could tell Sana loved her friends the same way. It’s why Nayeon was certain that they would work out their issues. She’d only known them a short while, but even though there was tension between Momo and Sana at the moment, the way they cared for each other was obvious.

So that wasn’t a problem. The problem was what came after they had their talk and patched up their friendship. Sana loved Nayeon. Sana wanted to be with Nayeon. But once she made things right with Momo and Mina, would Sana go back to being a hero? If so, what would that mean for Nayeon?

She didn’t know, and so she paced. Up and down, up and down. One quick glance in showed that Mina had whipped out that PowerPoint presentation and she was tapping one point on a slide insistently. Both Sana and Momo looked shamefaced, and Nayeon almost laughed.

Except you know, that whole worry about her future with Sana was still hanging over her. She really needed a better distraction, because pacing a hole in the floor just wasn’t cutting it.

“Nayeon?”

On second thought, pacing would be just fine.

“Hey, Nayeon!” Tzuyu caught up to her quickly, tugging her into an empty room before Nayeon could get away. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Nayeon wriggled out of Tzuyu’s grip and tried to make a beeline for the door, but the taller girl blocked her way.

“Nayeon! Why are you so… off?”

“I’m not off! What does that even mean? Why do you care if I’m off?” Nayeon scoffed. “Aha! You don’t care, do you? You’re just deflecting because _you’re_ the one that feels off! Gotcha!”

Tzuyu gave her a flat stare, and Nayeon’s grin wilted.

“Alright fine maybe I’m a little off. Now go away.”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong. Every time you see me you flinch away.”

“I do not! You’re projecting again.”

Tzuyu raised her fist and made a half-hearted punch towards Nayeon’s face. Nayeon screamed and scrambled away.

“Yep.” Tzuyu rolled her eyes. “Definitely nothing wrong there.”

“Why are you always so deadpan and sarcastic?” Nayeon whined. “You used to be such a cute little kid! Who raised you?”

“Good and loving parents with no patience for bullshit. So tell me, what’s up? Why are you so scared of me?”

“Well gee, I wonder.” Nayeon laughed sharply. “Maybe it has something to do with how you snapped and pushed Chanmi through like three walls?”

“What?” Tzuyu looked genuinely confused. “But why would that scare you? She was evil! I would never do that to you.”

“Why not? I’m your mortal enemy!”

“You’re really not.”

“We hate each other!”

“We really don’t.”

“You say you hate me like every time we meet!”

“Because you’re always being a pain in my ass! But I never mean it, even when you’re seriously annoying.”

“Well I hate you!”

“You do?” Tzuyu gasped.

Nayeon tried to stay strong, but when she saw tears forming at the edge of Tzuyu’s eyes she cracked.

“Fine fine I don’t hate you! I don’t! But can we at least be frenemies? I have to save some of my pride.”

“You never had any pride to begin with but sure, let’s go with frenemies.”

Nayeon sighed, and a quiet calm settled in the room. Tzuyu let it linger for a moment before continuing.

“Nayeon, I would never push you through a wall like that. I know I threaten you a lot but I don’t seriously mean most of it. You may be a supervillain but you’re not evil, not like Chanmi who just wanted to hurt people out of spite.”

Nayeon opened her mouth to argue, but Tzuyu waved a hand dismissively.

“And yes, there are a long list of citizens, myself included, that want to sue you for property damage and general criminal annoyance. But at the end of the day, I know that you would never seriously hurt anyone.”

“You don’t know that.” Nayeon mumbled weakly.

“Do you think I would let you keep kidnapping Chaeyoung if there was even the slightest chance you would actually harm her?”

Damn. She had a point there.

“Remember the time you tied Chaeyoung up to a plank headed towards a buzzsaw?” Tzuyu continued. “You said you’d only switch it off if I solved all the puzzles you made for me, but when I started taking too long you got impatient, and in the end, you switched the saw off, untied Chaeyoung, and then both of you showed me how to do all the puzzles I was stuck on. So yeah, I don’t exactly consider you the embodiment of evil. You’re just a lonely dumbass.”

“Hey!” Nayeon protested. “I may not be evil but that doesn’t mean I’m lonely!”

“All your schemes are just done to get attention, usually mine.” Tzuyu pointed out. “I still don’t understand why, but honestly at this point I don’t care. You have Sana now, so get your shit together and stop acting like being my archnemesis is your sole purpose in life.”

Nayeon tried to figure out how the conversation had gone from accusations of hatred to Tzuyu being her life coach. When the younger girl had tugged her into the room, this was not at all what she had expected.

 “…Maybe, just maybe, you’re right.” Nayeon admitted begrudgingly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to apologize for all the supervillain shenanigans.”

“I never expected you too.” Tzuyu rolled her eyes again. “And honestly, tell anyone this and I’ll kill you, but they weren’t all bad.”

“Wow.” Nayeon smirked. “You’re already back to threatening to kill me? You’re such a violent soul Tzuyu.”

“Shut up and let me be soft with you for a minute.”

Nayeon grinned smugly, but gestured for Tzuyu to continue.

“Have you ever been in love Nayeon?”

That was… a loaded question. When Nayeon heard the phrase “in love”, her mind used to go straight to Yeri. To foolishly rushing in and reading into every little laugh and nod, to a whirlwind romance with an abrupt and painful ending, to grand gestures that left her with nothing but an empty heart. To the belief she’d gained, that Yeri was right and her powers made her incapable of falling in love properly.

_“We would never work. You and I are on different levels.”_

But now she thought of Sana. Sana who eased Nayeon’s every fear and uncertainty with solid, wholehearted love. Sana who fell just as hard and fast as Nayeon, and stuck by her when things went sideways. Sana, who she’d known for a few days, but who had somehow made her unafraid of falling in love again.

_“I love you.”_

Nayeon smiled.

“Yeah.” She replied. “I’m in love right now actually.”

Tzuyu nodded, and Nayeon was grateful that she didn’t question that statement. She was sick of the whole ‘You’ve known Sana for less than a week’ nonsense. Whatever happened to love is love?

“It’s the best feeling.” Tzuyu said softly. “Because every day, I get to wake up to this amazing girl I love, and every day she chooses to love me back. But at the same time, it can be so terrifying. Because she’s so talented and pretty and funny and she deserves the world but all I can offer her is the risky life of a superhero’s girlfriend. The first time you kidnapped her was the closest I got to ever really hating you, because I was so sure we were going to break up once I rescued her.”

A teeny tiny tendril of guilt wormed its way into Nayeon’s heart, but she firmly ignored it. Jeopardizing Tzuyu’s love life may not have been the nicest thing to do, but it all worked out in the end.

Oddly enough, Tzuyu seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“But we didn’t break up. My crazy life wasn’t a deal breaker for her, not the first time you kidnapped her and not the fifth or the tenth or the… How many times has it been?”

“I’m not keeping track.”

Tzuyu shot her a look, and Nayeon grinned sheepishly

“Ok fine I’ve kidnapped her twelve times.”

“Twelve times...” Tzuyu nodded slowly. “I’m going to ignore how much I want to feed you to Gucci right now because the point of my whole speech is this: Your multiple attempts to ruin my love life actually made me more secure in my relationship. So yeah, your supervillain shenanigans are a pain most of the time, but you haven’t had a completely negative impact on my life, and you’re definitely not evil. I’m guessing whatever had you pacing up and down has to do with Sana, and I don’t know all the details, but whatever the problem is, don’t self-sabotage ok? You deserve to be happy, and it would make my job a whole lot easier if you had someone else to focus on in your life.”

“Wow.” Nayeon reached up to put a hand on Tzuyu’s shoulder. “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, but some of it is also complete nonsense.”

Tzuyu looked surprised, but Nayeon kept going before she could interrupt. It was her turn to be the life coach, even if her main policy in life had always been ‘Fake it til you make it’.

“Why the heck would you ever think that you can’t offer Chaeyoung the world? Yeah, she stuck by you despite all the tricky superhero stuff, but you stuck by her despite her changing hairstyles every three weeks. There’s nothing for you to be insecure about. You balance each other just fine kid.”

“That’s not the same! All her hairstyles were wonderful!”

“Ok I know love is blind, but c’mon. Even the mushroom hair?”

“The mushroom hair was cute and I won’t hear another word of slander against it.”

“Well, you’re entitled to your wrong opinion.” Nayeon patted her shoulder patronizingly. “My point is, when she pulls out that ring again, you better accept. I have plans to crash your wedding with Sana, so don’t disappoint me, got it?”

“Shut up, you’re like forty.” Tzuyu mumbled, but her face was red when she pushed Nayeon’s hand away. “Obviously I’m going to say yes, I’m not an idiot. Go back to your girlfriend who loves you and enjoy the fact that you’re not a lonely dumbass anymore.”

“Fine!” Nayeon swivelled dramatically and walked towards the door, but she paused at the exit.

“We’re still archnemeses, right? Even if I don’t spend all my free time to coming up with ways to ruin your life anymore?”

“Obviously. And this conversation never happened.”

“Good.” Nayeon nodded firmly. “Either I’ll see you at Jihyo’s this Friday, or Sana and I will come up with some dastardly scheme to target you next week.”

“Or you could just use all the money you stole and travel the world together.”

“Yeah but I haven’t even shown her the shrink ray yet.”

“If you shrink everything in my apartment again-”

Nayeon was out the door before Tzuyu could finish her threat.

That conversation had been… unexpected. But strangely enough Nayeon felt more at peace now. The knot in her stomach still grew tighter as she reached Sana’s room, but she felt more prepared to face what was coming.

She knocked once, smiling at the look of happiness on Sana’s face when she noticed Nayeon. Momo and Mina were gone, but judging by Sana’s cheerfulness their conversation had gone well.

And that was a good thing. Even if it meant trouble for Nayeon, she wouldn’t begrudge Sana the love of her friends.

“Hey.” Sana smiled gently, reaching up to stroke Nayeon’s face when she got close enough. “You have your serious face on. What’s happened?”

“Nothing really.” Nayeon admitted. “But I think we should talk. There are a few things I need to say to you.”

“Me too.” Sana sighed. “I talked with Momo and Mina. We hashed it all out properly this time, and Momo said she was sorry. I feel… better.”

“That’s good.” Nayeon took Sana’s hand, squeezing it comfortingly. “So, you three are alright now? Fight over, friendship back?”

“Yeah.” Sana nodded. “I mean, some of the hurt is still lingering, but they want to fix it and I want to let them. I love them and they love me, you know?”

Nayeon’s hand went to her necklace, one that Jeongyeon had given both her and Jihyo when they had all graduated high school. She thought of her and Jeongyeon mimicking the way Chaeyoung brushed her teeth, of trying to giving Jihyo a piggyback at a Park Bogum concert and failing miserably but laughing the whole time.

“Yeah.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “I know.”

If it was a choice between her friends and Sana, who would Nayeon choose?

It wasn’t really a question, was it? Sana would never be cruel enough to force Nayeon to make that choice.

“So it’s all good!” Sana smiled brightly, but then she hesitated. “There is one thing though.”

_Don’t self-sabotage._ Nayeon reminded herself. She’d known this was coming, even if she wasn’t ready for it. She gave Sana an encouraging smile, because her girlfriend looked far too nervous right now.

Nayeon had anticipated this. So when Sana said it, she didn’t break down or freak out. All she felt was cold, numb acceptance.

“They still want me to go back to Japan with them. They want me to be a part of the Trinity again.”


	15. First Big Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest and most self indulgent chapter I've written. Parts of it are pure crack and I'd apologize but I'm not even sorry.

_Don’t self-sabotage._

Tzuyu’s words kept repeating themselves in Nayeon’s mind, and as simple as they were, they helped her stay calm. Instead of freaking out or doing something dramatic, Nayeon just took a breath and then asked:

“So, what did you tell them?”

“I said…” Sana looked down and gripped her blanket. “I said I needed to think about it.”

Well. It could be worse. At least it wasn’t an outright agreement to ditch Nayeon and go home.

“I mean,” Sana rambled nervously on. “I didn’t want to go back when things were shitty between us, and even though we’ve made up I still don’t know if I’d be happier back as a superhero. Maybe if I hadn’t met you, but I love you and I want to be with you but at the same time I love them and I want to be with them so I just don’t know.”

And suddenly, Nayeon felt sick. Not of Sana, but sick of her own anxiety and doubts. Hadn’t Sana already proven that she could be trusted? Didn’t she say earlier that she’d rather be here with Nayeon than back in Japan? So why was Nayeon still scared of something like this?

Nayeon made a decision there and then. She wasn’t going to worry about this. If Sana chose to stay here with Nayeon, then that was fantastic. If she chose to leave, then Nayeon was going to make the most of all the time they had left.

“Take all the time you need.” Nayeon reached out to gently unclench Sana’s hands from their grip on the blanket. “In the meantime, is there anything I can do for you?”

Nayeon’s calm reaction seemed to relax Sana. She smiled, and Nayeon’s heart clenched at how pale she still looked.

“There’s a party on tonight to celebrate the fact that we’re all not dead. Momo and Mina rented out a nightclub and invited everyone involved in Chanmi’s attack.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I do, but I’m worried I won’t look good all sick and dizzy.”

“That’s ridiculous, you look wonderful!” Nayeon protested. “In fact, I’d ravish you right here and now if the doctors and Jihyo hadn’t specifically told me not to.”

“Ravish me?” Sana wiggled her eyebrows, and Nayeon smiled at the familiar teasing look in her eyes. “Well now I really feel like going out tonight. What do you say?”

“I’m down.” Nayeon agreed immediately. “Any idea what this nightclub’s like? And how come no one told me about this party?”

“No idea, but it’s Momo and Mina so it’s probably got good drinks and average music. And no one told you because apparently you looked ready to bite everyone’s head off, so they figured they’d let me tell you about it instead.”

“They were intimidated by me?” Nayeon’s eyes shone. “Finally! People are respecting me as a genuine supervillain!”

“Well according to Momo it was because they all ‘ _understand what it’s like when the girl you’re whipped for is in trouble’_ but I think your theory is just as valid.”

“She called _me_ whipped? Momo was acting like Mina’s professional bodyguard the second she started crying!”

“Really?” Sana smiled fondly. “That’s cute. Usually it’s the other way around with Mina being whipped for her.”

“Does it… bother you? When we talk about them?”

“Nah.” Sana waved her hand breezily. “I’m over Mina. I mean she’s great and I love her, but she and Momo are good together, and you and me are perfect.”

Someone must have switched the air conditioning off because Nayeon felt her face heating up rapidly. She coughed nervously, deciding to ignore the giddy rush of feelings she got when Sana called them perfect. She wasn’t whipped. No way.

(Sana’s smile grew softer at Nayeon’s blush, and fine maybe she was a little whipped.)

“Is there any other news I missed?” Nayeon asked.

“Chungha and I have both been cleared by the doctors to attend the party tonight if we want, all other injured victims are also good to go, Chanmi is currently in surgery with six police officers armed and ready around her and Chaeyoung dyed her hair blonde.”

“Wait what? When did she find the time to do that?”

“No one knows.” Sana laughed. “The main theory is that she found a bottle of peroxide in a storage closet and just went for it like the madwoman she is. She looks good though.”

“Oh, you like blondes, do you?” Nayeon smirked. “Well too bad you missed my blonde phase.”

“No way!” Sana gasped, then pouted. “I want to see you blonde! What other hair colours did you try?”

“Red and brown. I also cut my hair short, but that was a dark period in my life.”

“I bet you looked amazing with short hair.”

“No.” Nayeon laughed. “No I did not.”

“Show me a picture or I won’t believe you.”

Nayeon sighed, but she couldn’t say no to Sana’s shimmering eyes. She pulled out her phone and found a photo of her taken a few years ago.

“Don’t laugh.”

“Laugh?” Sana’s jaw dropped open. “You look stunning! How the heck can you think you look bad?”

“Shoulder length just doesn’t suit me as well as long hair.” Nayeon shrugged.

“It does! I can’t believe I wasn’t around for that look.” Sana pouted again. “I’m going to get you to cut your hair short again, even if it takes me months to convince you.”

“Months? It would take you years.”

Nayeon didn’t bring up the fact that Sana might not be staying around for much longer. She’d already promised herself she wasn’t going to worry, which meant she wasn’t going to push her girlfriend to make a decision. If Sana wanted to talk about it she could.

“So, about that party.” Nayeon changed the subject quickly before the elephant in the room could grow more awkward. “You said that the music would probably be average. I know a great band that I could ask to perform if you want?”

“Really? What band?”

Nayeon smiled.

* * *

The club was large and loud. Huge speakers were hung in every room so that everyone could hear the music coming from the main stage. As the guests on the dance floor bopped to _Heart Attack,_ Nayeon and Jeongyeon watched fondly as Sana and Jihyo spun around laughing.

“I still can’t believe you got LOONA to perform tonight.” Jeongyeon leant over to yell in her ear. “How in the hell did you manage that?”

“Remember the guy from the weapons store? Jungkook? He and I are in an elite secret society called the Bunnies. One of the LOONA girls, Heejin, is also a member. I reached out and asked for a favour.”

Jeongyeon stared at her. Nayeon stared back innocently.

“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or not.”

“Which answer would make you sleep better tonight?”

She could practically see the gears turning frantically in Jeongyeon’s brain. Nayeon struggled to keep a straight face until Jeongyeon finally shook her head.

“You’re messing with me. You have to be.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Sana and Jihyo came over as the song ended, thankfully saving Jeongyeon from a full-on breakdown. Sana grinned and grabbed Nayeon’s hands as _Hi High_ began playing through the speakers.

“Come with me. I’m thirsty!”

“For water? Or for something else? Because I’m pretty sure there are bedrooms upstairs.”

Sana just winked and dragged Nayeon away into the main room, where the biggest bar was located. On their way they passed Chungha sitting down with a cast on her leg and her arm in a sling. Five girls were hovering around her, fussing over her injuries.

“Looks like Chanmi’s attack wasn’t a total tragedy.” Nayeon remarked.

Sana laughed and nodded ahead, where Chaeyoung and Tzuyu were leaning against the bar. Chaeyoung, very much drunk, was chatting to three girls of her own. Nayeon could practically see Tzuyu’s blood pressure rising as one of the girls reached out to stroke Chaeyoung’s hair but luckily, she saw another blonde-haired girl who could help.

“Dahyun!”

Dahyun, currently flirting with another girl, turned around to glare at Nayeon.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something here!”

Nayeon gestured towards the bar, and Dahyun sighed when she saw what was happening.

“Sorry Gahyeon, I have to deal with this. If I don’t see you later, call me!”

She rushed over to the counter, grabbing both Tzuyu and Chaeyoung and dragging them away. Nayeon heard her mutter something about never getting a girlfriend of her own because of all her dumbass friends, but then they were out of sight and Sana was pulling her over to the bar.

“You think they’ll be alright?” Sana asked, handing Nayeon a glass of water.

“They’ll be fine.” Nayeon gratefully took the water. “I mean, Chaeyoung looked completely out of it, but she usually gets high before coming here so that’s normal. Either Dahyun and Tzuyu will stay with her until she sobers up or they’ll all start making out.”

“In that case let’s not follow them.”

They grabbed their drinks and made their way out into the hallway, where they didn’t have to yell at each other to be heard. Sana didn’t start talking right away. She looked contemplative, and Nayeon almost considered bringing up The Thing, but then another distraction arrived.

“You two!”

They looked over to the corner, where Momo and Mina were seated on chairs. Momo looked stressed, while Mina was staring blankly into space.

“What happened?” Sana asked, running over and kneeling down next to Mina.

“Your friend Chaeyoung came over, complimented my abs, told me she’d show me the in my feelings challenge and then gave Mina weed.”

“And they call _me_ the chaotic one.” Nayeon muttered.

“I think she smoked too much.” Momo gently poked Mina’s head. “She’s been ranting about complete nonsense and then blanking out, then ranting again.”

Mina chose that moment to blink rapidly and clap her hands together, causing the other three girls to jump.

“Look Momo, they’re what I mean!” she gestured at Nayeon and Sana. “They work so well together because they’ve got that classic Alpha and Omega dynamic! Sana bagged herself an Alpha! But you and I are both Betas, which means we’ve got a larger chance of not mating for life!”

No one really knew how to respond to that.

“What the fuck is she talking about?” Nayeon asked at last.

“I don’t know!” Momo cried. “Some fanfiction thing I think. What the hell was in that weed?”

“Hang on a second.” Sana frowned, shaking Mina’s shoulder to get her attention. “Did you just call me an Omega?”

“Yes!” Mina nodded, delighted that someone was finally paying attention. “And with Nayeon you’ve found your Alpha!”

Everyone seemed especially interested in Nayeon’s reaction to this. She shrugged.

“I mean, if Alpha means top and Omega means bottom, she’s not exactly wrong.”

“I’m a switch!” Sana protested.

“Oh honey.” Momo shook her head sympathetically. “You’re really not.”

“We only slept together _once_!”

“And I’ve had you pinned as a bottom since that first time.”

“Don’t you mean pegged?” Nayeon laughed at her own joke. “No but seriously, is Mina ok?”

“She’s delusional.” Sana grumbled. “Nayeon as an Alpha I can accept, but in what world are you both Betas and I’m an Omega? There’s no way we’re not equals.”

Mina’s eyes widened, and she frantically slapped Momo’s shoulder.

“Momo! Momo oh my God she’s _right_. Momo we’re not Betas we’re Omegas too! How are we going to _work_?”

“Baby, none of that is real.” Momo glared at them as Mina began to cry.

“I think we best…” Sana stared tiptoeing towards the exit.

“Agreed.” Nayeon followed her out. “Have a nice night Omegas!”

She muffled her giggles as Mina started yelling again. Sana shook her head, but there was a smile on her lips.

“So…” Nayeon drawled, as they made their way towards the smoking area. “You slept with Momo?”

“We were each other’s first time.” Sana explained. “It was pretty neat. We high fived afterwards and everything.”

“Nice.” Nayeon grinned. “By the way, do you have any idea what the _fuck_ Mina was talking about?”

“Honestly I’m not sure. She reads some weird stories on the internet, but after the time I caught her reading Sailor Moon fanfiction I decided not to ask.”

“How bad was it?”

“Not tentacle porn bad, but it was pretty close.”

“Hey guys?” They turned around to face Tzuyu, who looked worried. “Have you seen Chaeyoung? We were about to go have sex but then she and Dahyun vanished.”

“You were about to have _sex_?” Nayeon shrieked. “Here? With Jihyo and Jeongyeon just downstairs?”

“…Yes?” Tzuyu looked at her like she had two heads. “Chaeyoung and I are grown adults. We have sex a lot. Didn’t Dahyun tell you about that one time-”

“She did! She did!” Nayeon hastily interrupted. “But that’s not the point! You may be grown adults but in Jihyo and Jeongyeon’s eyes you are _babies_. Cute, innocent babies who have never had sex, who don’t even know what sex means! If they catch you here it’ll burst their bubble of innocence!”

“So what?” Tzuyu snorted. “I’m all grown up now, they’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Do you know how they’ll deal with it? Do you Tzuyu?” Nayeon stepped closer, her voice ominous. “They’ll give you the sex talk, the most awkward sex talk you’ve ever had in your life. Picture you and Chaeyoung sitting there with Jihyo in front of you, holding a carrot and a dental dam. She can’t stop crying because you’re both growing up so fast, but at the same time she won’t stop talking about oral hygiene and filing your nails. You want it to be over but in reality, that’s only round one. Jeongyeon hasn’t even sung the STD song or shown you their strap collection. Is that the future you want Tzuyu? Is it?”

Tzuyu’s face had grown considerably paler the more Nayeon ranted.

“So,” Nayeon said. “Once again I’ll ask: Are you and Chaeyoung going to have sex upstairs?”

“Sex?” Tzuyu laughed nervously. “What’s that? Never heard of it.”

“Atta girl.”

Tzuyu took off then before Nayeon could mentally scar her any further. Nayeon smiled when she felt Sana’s arms wrap around her.

“Did you really mean all that?”

“I wish I’d been exaggerating, but they used me as their guinea pig back when they first started worrying about the kids having sex. I even helped Jeongyeon compose the STD song.”

“I seriously thought you made that part up.”

“I wish I did, but alas I truly wasted three hours of my life trying to find words that rhymed with genital herpes.”

The sound of yelling distracted them once again. With all the entertainment this party had to offer, Nayeon wasn’t sure she’d get to finish a single conversation with Sana.

A crowd was forming in the parking lot. Nayeon and Sana elbowed their way through, eyes widening when they finally saw what was happening. Nayeon gave a delighted laugh at the sight.

Chaeyoung, swaying on her feet and pointing a plastic lightsaber at Jihyo, who was holding her own lightsaber and looked very unimpressed. Jeongyeon stood behind her wife, laughing and recording everything on her phone, while Tzuyu stood behind her soon to be fiancé, looking both embarrassed and amused.

“This is it! The final showdown!” Chaeyoung yelled dramatically. “All Tzuyu’s other friends have given their blessing, and even Nayeon approves! You’re the only one left Jihyo!”

“Of course I want you to propose to Tzuyu!” Jihyo yelled back. “I was with Jeongyeon when you asked for her blessing, you know I’m happy for you two. You’re basically part of the family already!”

“Nooo.” Chaeyoung whined, stomping her foot on the ground. “My victory has to be earned! You’re the final boss! The mom friend of all mom friends!”

“Jeongyeon’s more of a mom friend than I am and you asked her with no problem! Not to mention Tzuyu’s actual parents!”

“Tzuyu’s parents are fine, they love me and I told them about the ring months ago! With Jeongyeon I was shaking the whole time! Tzuyu and Dahyun had to hold my hands. And while Jeongyeon may be the mom friend you’re-”

“Chaeyoung if you call me the dad friend I swear-”

“You’re like the Alpha of the pack!” Chaeyoung blurted out.

“Oh not this shit again.” Nayeon groaned.

“And… and Tzuyu is like the most beautiful Omega in your pack, and I’m just some upstart Beta trying to steal her away and claim her as my own.”

The crowd was completely silent, everyone trying to figure out what Chaeyoung was attempting to say.

“…it made a lot of sense when I was talking about it with Mina, ok?”

“So you’re telling me you won’t propose to Tzuyu until we fight?” Jihyo sighed.

“A duel for the honour of her hand.” Chaeyoung thrust her lightsaber dramatically up in the air.

Jihyo looked around at the expectant faces. From the crowd of random party guests, to Nayeon and Sana with shit eating grins on their faces, to Jeongyeon who gave her a thumbs up, to Dahyun who was pretending very hard that she didn’t know any of them and to Tzuyu who just shrugged.

_What the hell._

“Fine.” Jihyo said, and the crowd erupted into cheers. “We’ll duel. First one to hit the other’s neck with their lightsaber wins.”

“Yes!” Chaeyoung cheered.

She turned around and kissed Tzuyu, then stumbled forward to face Jihyo. Thus began an epic duel that put action movies to shame. Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee wept, the creators of Star Wars based the plot of their next movie on this fight, the world fencing champions made a statue in honour of this duel, and stuntmen everywhere retired realising they could never top the sheer action and drama conveyed by these two fighters.

At least, that’s how Nayeon would tell the story later. In reality it was one completely hammered kid swishing a plastic toy around and attempting to hit an older girl who was trying to lose without making it too obvious. Still, the crowd was hyper and buzzed, and they oohed and gasped with each swing of the lightsabers. After a minute or two, Chaeyoung managed to brush Jihyo’s neck with her weapon, and Jihyo fell to the ground dramatically.

“You have defeated me.” Jihyo proclaimed solemnly. “Son Chaeyoung, I hereby give you my blessing to marry Tzuyu.”

The crowd broke out into cheers. Nayeon kissed Sana in celebration, while Tzuyu ran forward to pick Chaeyoung up and swing her around in a hug.

“Yes!” Chaeyoung cheered, but once Tzuyu had set her down she noticed the expectant faces. “Oh I’m not going to do it right now. I’ve got another dramatic idea for the actual proposal.”

Jihyo’s eyebrows shot up at this new revelation, but Tzuyu looked too happy for anyone to object. Sana tapped Nayeon’s shoulder, gesturing for them to get out of there. Nayeon began squeezing through the crowd, but not before she heard Chaeyoung whisper something to Tzuyu and Dahyun about a victory threesome.

Nayeon made a mental note to stay away from all the bedrooms and closets in the nightclub, just in case Tzuyu forgot her advice and gave in to her girlfriend. She didn’t dwell on it too long though, because Sana seemed to be dragging her away from the nightclub.

They ended up lying on a small grassy hill next to the parking lot, staring up at the night sky. Nayeon wanted to say something cheesy about the stars and Sana’s beauty, but before she could get a line out Sana turned to face her, a serious look on her face.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure.” Nayeon sat up, trying to ignore the anxiety in her stomach. “Is it about what Momo and Mina asked you to do?”

“Yeah.” Sana looked just as nervous as Nayeon felt. “I’ve made my decision. I know what I want.”

Honestly, Nayeon had been hoping for a little more time living in the moment and pretending this decision didn’t exist, but if Sana was ready then Nayeon was ready to hear it.

“What did you decide?”

For a second there was silence, and in that silence a million thoughts seemed to race through Nayeon’s mind. She felt like she was going to cry, but she couldn’t explain why.

Then Sana smiled.

“I’m staying here.” Sana said. “I want to be here, with you.”

There was a breath that Nayeon hadn’t even realised she’d been holding, and when she let it out it felt like all the buzzing in her head went with it. There were still questions, about what had led Sana to that decision and what she would say to her friends, but in that moment, there was only one response Nayeon could give.

She leant forward and kissed Sana, kissed her with all the love she had in her. Sana gasped, her hands flying up to cup Nayeon’s head, pulling her closer.

They were both crying, Nayeon realised. Happy tears, tears of relief.

Sana chose her. Sana loved Nayeon and she chose to stay. Nayeon laughed with joy, and then she cried a bit more and then she laughed again at her own tears. Sana held her close the whole time, held Nayeon like she never wanted to let go.

Nayeon understood, because she felt the exact same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just letting you all know that this AU should be finishing up in the next two or three chapters. Hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Fun fact: I'm random girl number four fawning over Chungha. This was a self insert fic in disguise the whole time.


	16. First Day of the Rest of Their Lives

Nayeon didn’t know how long they lay there, just basking in each other’s presence. The grass was cool, but with her head resting on Sana’s stomach, it didn’t bother her so much. Part of her didn’t want to break the atmosphere by talking, but there was something she needed to tell Sana.

Sana chose to stay, and Nayeon needed to tell her just how much that meant to her.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked. “It’s nothing bad, I promise. I just want to tell you a bit more about how I got into the supervillain business.”

Sana ran her fingers through Nayeon’s hair, and Nayeon closed her eyes at the gentle comfort. She never thought she could be this tender with someone, but Sana just made it so easy to be soft.

“You can tell me anything you want.” Sana replied. “I’m in no rush to go anywhere.”

“I mean, I want to get off this grass before my left buttcheek gets frostbite, but I promise I won’t take that long.”

Sana laughed quietly, making Nayeon’s head bob up and down. Nayeon grinned. She would get to make Sana laugh every day from now until forever. It still felt almost to good to be true.

She knew where that doubt was coming from, and she also knew it was wrong. Now all she needed to do was explain it to Sana.

“When I first got my powers, I didn’t know what to do with them.” she began. “I tried getting a normal job and settling down, but nothing worked. I just couldn’t fit in. I was feeling pretty low, and I wasn’t sure where my life was headed next. Then I met a girl.”

She glanced up to see Sana’s reaction. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, a tinge of jealousy maybe. But Sana just looked concerned, like she’d already figured out that this story didn’t have a happy ending.

But she was wrong. What Sana didn’t realise, and what had taken Nayeon some time to realise, was that her story did have a happy ending. And it was thanks to Sana that it came to be.

Nayeon was jumping ahead. She had to get through the bad stuff first.

“She was the one who convinced me to start stealing shit. In fairness I didn’t need much convincing, but the first things I stole using my power were all for her. We had a crazy few days, and being with her really made me believe like I’d found the next step. I thought I was in love.”

Sana’s hand found hers, and she squeezed. Preparing for the inevitable drop.

“She didn’t feel the same way. This was all a fun adventure to her, and when her parents rang all angry because they’d found out, she immediately bailed and went home. I begged her to stay, rewound time so many times to try and find a way to convince her, but nothing worked. I didn’t understand why until she told me flat out that we would never work because of my powers. She said that we were on different levels and honestly? She was right. We couldn’t connect properly, not when I could rewind our conversations and she couldn’t.”

Sana looked like she wanted to protest, but she held whatever anger she was feeling back, which Nayeon appreciated.

“I never told anyone the full story, not even Jeongyeon and Jihyo. It only lasted a few days, but it left me completely shaken. I fully believed that I would never be able to connect with anyone again, not while I had this godlike power and they didn’t. I had Jeongyeon and Jihyo, because they were my friends before I’d created the reversal light, but the thought of not ever being able to bond with anyone else? To never form new relationships because I would never be on the same level as them? It was pretty awful. I almost threw the reversal light away, but I’d spent years working on it, and even if it was gone the effects of the lightning strike on my brain would still exist.”

She glanced up, hoping Sana got what she was trying to say. It was too dark for Nayeon to see clearly, but it looked like Sana was crying a little. It brought another soft smile to her face, and she reached up to carefully brush the tears away before continuing.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was angry and hurt and spiralling because all of a sudden it felt like I was unlovable. I went to a museum and robbed the shit out of it for no reason. The police couldn’t catch me, and so they sent Tzuyu after me, and that’s when something clicked. Even if Jihyo and Jeongeyon would be my only friends for the rest of my life, there was another superpowered person in this city that I could form a relationship with. Obviously, I didn’t want to date Tzuyu or anything. But being her archnemesis was… something. Better than being alone.”

Nayeon was almost scared to look up. She knew it sounded ridiculous, and pathetic, but she couldn’t think of a better way to explain it. Being a supervillain gave her life purpose and direction, as well as a relationship where they were both equals. She was aware that it was kind of irrational. But so far Sana had always been able to understand Nayeon’s mentality, and she trusted her girlfriend to understand this choice too.

When she looked up, she was not disappointed. Sana didn’t need to say anything. Even in the dim light, Nayeon could see the sympathy and understanding in her eyes.  It made her chest feel warm. Nayeon cleared her throat and brought the story to an end, before the temptation to kiss the sad look off Sana’s face grew too much to resist.

“So that was me. That was where I was at in my life, and nothing looked set to change. It wasn’t all bad, I still had my two best friends, and this weird frenemy relationship with Tzuyu was entertaining. But still, I firmly believed that this was it for me. That this was as far as I would ever get.”

She looked up, making sure Sana could see how much she meant this next part.

“Then you came along. And suddenly, I had someone new who wanted to be with me. Someone who cared about me and didn’t think my power was too much for them to handle.  It was scary at first, realising I was falling for you. But every step of the way you crushed my insecurities and proved that you wanted this just as badly as I did. And now, knowing that you’re staying here to be with me, it feels… I can’t describe how great this feels. I know I bullshit a lot, but being with you has genuinely helped me love myself again, and no matter what happens I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

There were a few seconds after she’d finished, a few seconds where Nayeon came back to herself and realised how raw and vulnerable she sounded. She sat up, feeling her cheeks redden in embarrassment. There was a witty comment forming on her tongue, but it never left her mouth. Sana reached forward and kissed her, and any awkwardness Nayeon felt was swept away.

They kissed for a long time. Nayeon was honestly proud of how long they went without needing air. When they finally parted, Sana made sure to keep Nayeon’s face gently cupped in her hands.

“I love you too.” she said softly. “Thank you for telling me this.”

Then she leant forward and booped their noses together.

“Nerd.”

“Hey!” Nayeon protested, indignation mixing with her giggles. “You’re the one in love with this nerd, so any attempt to slander me is automatically a self-drag.”

“Well I can’t argue with your flawless logic.” Sana grinned. “But I can suggest that we celebrate my decision by going to the hotel Momo booked us all into and spending the rest of the night having fun, just the two of us.”

“By fun to you mean a mixture of tender loving sex and rough kinky sex?”

“Well I was trying to be coy but yeah that’s exactly what I meant.”

“I’m in.” Nayeon jumped up, shaking the numbness out of her legs and pulling Sana up. “Let’s try to stay away from our friends, because otherwise we’ll probably get roped into more shenanigans and I really just want to kiss you somewhere warm and comfortable.”

“Deal.” Sana laughed.

They almost succeeded too. They didn’t run into Chaeyoung, but on the way up to their swanky room, they got stuck in an elevator with Momo and Mina. It wasn’t really a problem, except that Mina was still out of it and kept trying to pull Momo’s clothes off.

“She found some alcohol when I wasn’t looking,” Momo explained. “and apparently alcohol mixed with weed makes Mina…”

Mina nibbled Momo’s earlobe and Momo gulped.

“If I could just get her to the bedroom I think she’d fall asleep but that’s proving to be…” Mina’s hand went under Momo’s shirt and Momo’s voice went up three octaves. “…a bit of a challenge!”

She squirmed away and Mina giggled quietly. Nayeon was almost tempted to stay and help because that laugh was adorable, but when the elevator dinged Sana dragged her out with a quick “Good luck!” to Momo.

After that, well…

It wasn’t hard to guess what they did next.

* * *

In the morning, Nayeon skipped over to the elevator. She and Sana were practically glowing, and not even once again being stuck in an elevator with Momo and Mina could fully dampen their vibe.

Mina’s hair was sticking up in five different directions, and Momo looked like she’s barely gotten any sleep. Not the fun lack of sleep like Nayeon and Sana, the taking-care-of-my-drunk-girlfriend-all-night-kind.

Both of them could clearly tell what Nayeon and Sana had been up to, but no one was willing to acknowledge it. The first half of the elevator ride was spent in total silence, until Momo finally grew brave enough to break the ice.

“So…” she smiled awkwardly. “Anyone here watch RWBY?”

“Is that the western anime about lesbians?” Nayeon asked.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Uh…” Nayeon racked her brains for what little she heard about the show. “One of them is blonde and the other is a catgirl?”

“More specific.”

“I think the catgirl is involved with a shady organization or something?”

“More specific.”

“Seriously?” Nayeon threw her hands in the air. “How many western anime are there about gay catgirls?”

“Well I only know of two, but now that I think of it, that is a weird coincidence. Although I think the one from RWBY is bi, so you’re probably talking about She-ra.”

Thankfully, the elevator opened at the ground floor, saving Nayeon from further conversation. Sana really did have a fondness for nerds of all kinds, it seemed.

Jeongyeon was waiting in the hotel lobby, looking grim. Nayeon wondered what she’d done to deserve that glare first thing in the morning. Were the police still mad at her? She thought saving the city from Chanmi would be enough for a pardon or something.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Jeongyeon, as the others made their way over to the breakfast buffet. “Also whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

“It’s not you, don’t worry.” Jeongyeon sighed. “Tzuyu, Chaeyoung and Dahyun got arrested last night. Jihyo’s at the police station picking them up.”

Nayeon stared at Jeongyeon. Jeongyeon stared back.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I think my brain is having trouble processing what you just said.”

Jeongyeon rolled her eyes, but complied.

“The three of them got arrested for public indecency. I don’t know the full story, but Jihyo’s on her way over there to find out.”

Nayeon blinked. She blinked again.

“Sana!” she yelled. “Tzuyu got arrested! I need to get over to the police station to see this!”

“I’ll steal us a car.” Sana was at her side in seconds, a plate of fruit ready for Nayeon to eat on the way. “What happened? Why did she get arrested?”

“I don’t know yet, but it was probably Chaeyoung’s fault.”

* * *

Nayeon came to the police station prepared. She had sunglasses on, a beanie, and a scarf covering the lower half of her face. Sure, she probably looked very suspicious, but she was confident she could play it off as hungover.

Sana’s invisible hand held hers as they walked in. Jihyo was waiting anxiously on the bench across from them. She smiled once she saw Nayeon, then frowned once she saw what she was wearing, then shook her head and decided to ignore it.

Nayeon loved being able to make her friends go through multiple emotions in the span of seconds.

“Sana’s with me too.” she said. “We’re just going incognito to avoid any heat from the cops.”

“Don’t try and sound cool.” Jihyo said. “Also hi Sana.”

“Hi.” Sana whispered back.

“So what’s the story? Why did they get arrested?”

“Tzuyu called me and explained.” Jihyo did not sound pleased. “Apparently, they were on their way to the hotel for a final threesome before Tzuyu and Chaeng got engaged, which I’m not going to discuss now because it’s just too much to deal with. But Chaeyoung was getting impatient so she started trying to get them to forget the hotel and do it behind a patch of bushes. The police caught them half naked and they ran for it. They almost got away, but then Chaeyoung started tweeting about how they were on the run and they got caught again.”

“How did they get caught? Does one of the officers follow Chaeyoung on Twitter or something?”

“No. They just saw the light of her phone and followed it to where they were hiding.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.”

Jihyo grimly handed Nayeon her phone, showing all three of Chaeyoung’s drunk tweets.

_LMAOOO y’all are never going to believe what happened to me. Almost got busted by the police for having sex. #copshatealllesbians #evensuperheros_

_Calm down I’ll give you the full story just let me type it all out_

_Oh fuck nvm they found us again gotta blast_

“She’s got pretty good spelling and grammar considering how stoned she was.”

“Really? That’s what you’re focusing on?”

“You’re right. The amount of replies is incredible.”

“Nayeon.”

“No in all seriousness, why do so many people on Twitter talk like that?”

Jihyo looked ready to strangle her, but before she could the door to the cells suddenly opened, and all three girls were led out. Beneath her scarf, Nayeon wore the biggest shit eating grin of her life. She stood up, and before Jihyo could stop her, made her way over with her phone out.

“Say cheese!”

Tzuyu looked murderous and tired, Chaeyoung looked confused and still quite drunk. Dahyun actually smiled for the camera, bless her.

Nayeon loved them all so much.

“What’s it feel like to be on the wrong side of the law Tzuyu?”

“I will murder you as soon as my head stops spinning.”

“You hear that officers? A death threat. Better send her back in and increase bail.”

Tzuyu looked ready to snap, but then she noticed Jihyo waiting for them and she grew pale.

“Felix, is there any way you can hide me in a cell for a few more hours?”

“Afraid not Tzuyu.” All the police officers looked like they were trying to hold back their laughter.

“You three.” Jihyo stood up, and even the police officers stopped chatting. “Car. Now.”

Tzuyu shot Nayeon a helpless look, and Nayeon did actually feel a twinge of pity for them. She shook her head sadly.

“I warned you kid. Get prepared for the most uncomfortable sex talk of your life, as well as a lecture on responsibility and obeying the law.”

“She’s best friends with _you,_ where does she get off having the moral high ground on lawbreaking?”

“I don’t know, but do you really want to argue with her about this?”

Tzuyu almost looked tempted for a few seconds, but then Jihyo glared at her and she quickly got moving. Nayeon could feel Sana shaking with silent laughter beside her.

Chaeyoung was the last of the trio to leave the station. She paused in the doorway to put her middle fingers up, and she was swaying so hard that for a second Nayeon thought she was going to fall over.

“Fuck the police!” she yelled.

Then she threw up on the carpet.

“Tzuyu’s going to marry her.” Nayeon said, as Dahyun helped get Chaeyoung into the car. “Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that the most wonderful thing?”

“They’re a perfect match.” Sana replied cheerfully. “Just like us, but in a very different way.”

“Very, very different.” Nayeon agreed. “Also, we best get out of here before the police catch on to us.”

“We already know it’s you Nayeon.” The officer behind the desk said. “Plus you’re talking to thin air so I assume Sana is with you?”

“You can’t prove anything.” Nayeon quickly backed out of the station. “Try it and my lawyers will hunt you down.”

“Yeah, yeah, see you in a few weeks.”

“Screw you Felix! I know about your secret rap group!”

She grabbed Sana and ran, cackling as the precinct burst into curious babble. Once they reached the stolen car she ditched the scarf and Sana flickered back into visibility. Soon they were out on the open road, and Nayeon lay back with a grin as Sana drove them who knows where.

“I’m not going to lie. These have quite possibly been the best twenty-four hours of my life.”

“Want to hear something that’ll make it even better?” Sana said, a smile on her face as her eyes darted between the road and Nayeon. “It’s not just twenty four hours. We can spend the rest of our lives having this much fun.”

Nayeon may have kissed Sana then, and Sana may have swerved and accidentally crashed into a lamppost. It’s entirely possible that was the reason why they came back to the hotel in a different car they left in, but it wasn’t like Nayeon was going to admit it.

Outside the hotel, they found Jeongyeon, Momo and Mina engaged in a bizarre game of tag. In order to make it fair Momo seemed to be carrying at least ten backpacks and three sets of ankle weights. From the looks of it she was still winning.

Nayeon and Sana joined in fairly easily. They put a bell around Sana to counter her invisibility cheat, and Nayeon had to put her beloved reversal light in one of Momo’s many backpacks. It turns out both of them were terrible at being athletic, but had a natural ruthlessness when it came to winning. Every single dirty trick in the book was used, from shoving other targets into the line of fire to faking being tagged in order to confuse the enemy.

It felt like they played for hours. When they finally collapsed to the ground, Nayeon immediately started crawling over to Momo in order to find her reversal light. Sana was tangled up next to her from where they’d tripped over each other while trying to escape Mina. Nayeon looked around, from Jeongyeon and Mina trying to drag each other towards the water bottles, to Jihyo and Dahyun coming out with lunch for everyone, to Chaeyoung and Tzuyu next to them, each sporting shy grins and brand-new engagement rings, to Momo looking at Nayeon with nothing but happiness, none of the previous animosity remaining.

And finally, to Sana, face scrunched up in joy, revelling in the pure silliness of their antics.

If this was Nayeon’s future, if this was her happy ending…

It was a damn good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there! Just a two part epilogue left to go. Hope everyone enjoyed it so far, and thank you so much for all the lovely comments!


	17. Epilogue Part 1: First Skype Call

“So how’s it going? Anyone being mean to you that I need to beat up?”

Lying flat on her stomach on her tragically empty double bed, Nayeon squinted at the laptop screen as Sana moved around on the other end, trying to get a better connection.

_“It’s fine.”_ Sana’s voice was a second behind her face, and Nayeon pushed her laptop a little to the left to try and make it better. _“It’s not like the police can catch me. When they ask Momo and Mina they both lie and say they haven’t seen me. But yesterday Momo and I were caught shopping together, so we had to stage this epic fight. I think we accidently punched each other like twice.”_

“Glad to hear you’re having fun.” Nayeon genuinely meant it, even if she missed Sana like crazy. “How’s Chaeyoung doing?”

_“Oh she’s thriving.”_ Sana laughed. _“Momo’s YouTube channel has been raking in brand new subscribers ever since Chaeyoung started varying the content.”_

“I still can’t believe she went with you just to teach Momo fortnite dances.” Nayeon shook her head. “I mean, I get why you went, because three months is a long time to be away when you never left Japan before. But she really just heard that you were going back for a week and basically invited herself along.”

_“She’s a confident kid.”_ Sana agreed, the screen freezing for a few seconds. _“Remember what she told Jihyo when she got sick of the sex talk?”_

“ _’I eat your kid for breakfast, I know what I’m doing_.’ is pretty hard to forget.” Nayeon shuddered. “At least it stopped Jeongyeon halfway through her ridiculous song.”

_“Only because she spent the next five minutes trying to whack Chaeng with the guitar.”_

“I don’t blame her.” Nayeon said with a grimace. “I know they’re grown adults with a healthy sex life, but if I think about them doing it, it’s like picturing my little sisters.”

_“Agreed.”_ It was Sana’s turn to shudder. _“I don’t have siblings, but after being around you and your friends, I can’t help but see them as kids.”_

Even through the screen, Nayeon could sense Sana’s sadness. Tomorrow she was going to go visit her parents. Nayeon wished she had something helpful to say, but she hadn’t spoken to her family since becoming a supervillain. She didn’t want to get them wrapped up in this, and she didn’t want to know if they were disappointed in her. But Sana needed to know, and all Nayeon could do is be there for her. If tomorrow ended badly she would be on the next flight to Japan ready to comfort her girlfriend and shower her with love.

For now, she could change the subject.

“One good thing about Chaeyoung going away is that Tzuyu is very miserable.” Nayeon smirked. “Her sadness entertains me.”

_“Nice try. Jihyo already sent me photos of you two cuddling on her couch.”_

Damn Jihyo. Always exposing Nayeon, even to her own girlfriend.

“Alright fine.” Nayeon sighed. “We both miss you two so much that we spent all day yesterday in Jihyo’s apartment watching trashy romance films.”

_“Aw babe.”_ Sana’s giggles were worth the humiliation Nayeon felt. _“I’ll only be here a few more days. I promise to let you know about all the shenanigans.”_

“Like you can get up to much with your two goody-goody hero friends looking over your shoulder.” Nayeon teased.

_“You’d be surprised. Chaeyoung’s been a pretty bad influence on Momo.”_

“That… actually doesn’t surprise me. This is the girl who proposed to Tzuyu in the middle of a jail cell by rapping while Dahyun beatboxed. They had to wait until Jihyo showed up to bail them out in order to get the rings.”

_“The management really likes her though. They told Momo that MoChaeng TV was a good way to reel in a broader range of fans, and Momo basically took that as a go-ahead to hire Chaeyoung as her personal PR manager.”_

“I bet Mina loved that.”

_“I could see her soul leave her body every time Chaeyoung came running in with a new meme dance. But there was this one video she liked…”_

“Oh?” Nayeon leant closer to the screen, relishing the sparkle in Sana’s eyes.

_“Momo did a dance cover of Move, and Chaeyoung was supposed to film her but she ended up focusing in on Momo’s abs instead. We showed Mina the video and when it ended, she just stood up and yanked Momo into the bedroom.”_

“Seems Chaeyoung is helping everyone over there.”

_“You could say that.”_ Sana smiled. _“It was just us two in the living room after that and we actually had a nice conversation. I told her we should bond because we both missed the girl we were dating, and then she cried for a few seconds because she thought I meant that Tzuyu was dating both of us.”_

“How…”

_“She smelt like weed. I didn’t question it.”_

“Fair enough.”

They were both silent for a beat after that. Ordinarily Nayeon would enjoy the peaceful companionship, but since Sana wasn’t actually next to her the silence just made her panic that the call had lost all sound.

Screw Skype. Next time Nayeon was coming to Japan with her, co-dependency be damned.

“You still there?”

“ _Yep.”_ Sana said, struggling to hide a yawn. “ _Just thinking about tomorrow.”_

“It’ll be fine.” Nayeon said, trying to sound completely confident. “You’re taking Momo and Mina with you, your parents love you and they already know you’re a lesbian so that’s one struggle down. All you have to do is convince them that being a supervillain is a worthwhile way of life.”

Damn, that last part didn’t sound convincing at all. Sana smiled, but Nayeon could see the worry still in her eyes.

“ _I think I’m going to try and get some sleep.”_ Sana blew a kiss to the camera. _“I love you.”_

Now Nayeon knew that Sana was really badly worried. Ending the call without mentioning Skype sex was not normal, especially since they’d joked about it before she left.

“Don’t stress too much.” Nayeon blew a loud kiss back. “I love you too, and I’ll be there tomorrow if you need me.”

It looked like there were tears in Sana’s eyes, but she waved goodbye and ended the call before Nayeon could be certain. She sighed, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling.

“Fuck you Jeongyeon.” She grumbled. “’ _Just try and spend a week away from each other Nayeon. It shouldn’t be that hard Nayeon._ Liar.”

Since Jeongyeon was asleep on the other side of the city, she didn’t respond to Nayeon’s accusations. With no Sana and no one to annoy, Nayeon gave another grumpy sigh then flopped over to try and sleep.

Her bed felt cold without Sana.

God, she was such a sappy gay. It was all Sana’s impact, Nayeon used to be cool and closed off before she met her.

Yeah, as grumpy as she was there was no way she could spin that as a good thing. Sana had changed her life for the better, and Nayeon loved her for it.

As soon as Sana got back, Nayeon was showing her just how much she appreciated having her in her life. A nice romantic dinner, maybe a movie and an act or two of supervillainy, then a fun night in a five-star hotel doing all sorts of things that would make their friends blush if they told them.

Oddly enough, thinking about that made Nayeon drift peacefully off to sleep.

* * *

“So what’s the point of this clone? How come they’re in charge?”

“Maybe if you shut up, we could watch the episode and find out.”

Nayeon tossed a piece of popcorn at Tzuyu, but it was a half-hearted effort.

“I don’t get why you like this? I know it has lesbians but still, how did you even find this show?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t laughing when Alison let her neighbour choke to death.” Tzuyu munched on her popcorn as she clicked onto the next episode. “Your cackling almost ruined the scene. And I found this show through the internet, the same way you find all that weird porn you like using as inspiration.”

“Ok, first of all how the fuck do you know what porn I watch? You’re like twelve, there should be Parental Controls on your internet.”

“I’m nineteen, Chaeyoung and I literally had Skype sex last night, and I heard about your porn habits from Jeongyeon who heard it from Momo who heard it from Sana. Apparently, she’s really pleased at how good you’ve gotten at tying ropes.”

“Really? She said that?” Nayeon beamed. “Good, I was worried I tied them too tight last time but this one video which was mostly centred around choking looked really hot and I-”

Tzuyu turned the volume up on the TV, and Nayeon pouted. It was only fair that if Tzuyu got to traumatise her by being an adult and vocally admitting to having sex with her fiancée, then Nayeon got to traumatise Tzuyu back by discussing her own sex escapades. Sexcapades, if you will.

Sex made her think of Sana. Everything made her think of Sana really. Her hand strayed to her phone. Sana would be visiting her parents right about now. Was it going ok? Was she crying or happy? What if she rang in the next minute and Nayeon’s phone died for some reason?

“You’re worrying again.” Tzuyu’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “She’ll call if things go wrong, so just enjoy the fact that she hasn’t called yet. It means she’s fine.”

“Right.” Nayeon focused on the show. “Why is Sarah running again?”

“Kira’s missing and creepy men are chasing her.”

“Got it.”

They were halfway through the episode when Jihyo came in the door from work. She took one look at them and shook her head.

“This is just sad.” she declared. “We’re going out. No more moping.”

“We’re not moping!” Nayeon protested. “Could a mopey person do this!”

She held up the bag of popcorn. Jihyo didn’t seem impressed.

“Microwave popcorn? Yeah, they could. Now get up, we’re leaving in ten minutes.”

“Where are we even going?” Tzuyu slumped further into the couch. “There’s no point in leaving the house. Everywhere I go I’m reminded of Chaeyoung.”

Nayeon was so tempted to make fun of her, but seeing as she was still checking her phone every minute, she knew she couldn’t. Tzuyu wouldn’t hesitate to roast her back and Nayeon always got her feelings hurt first. It was slightly less embarrassing than when she was a teenager and a twelve-year-old could make her cry, but still not worth it.

“We’re going to the skate park.” Jihyo announced. “So grab some gear. Nayeon, your old skates are still in the closet.”

“Just like you were.” Tzuyu couldn’t resist adding, even though Nayeon was quick to whack her with a pillow for it.

“Shut up! At least when I came out, I was a confident gay. You’re still shy and nervous even though you have a fiancée.”

Tzuyu’s face lit up at the fiancée comment, and Nayeon rolled her eyes, knowing that any hope of a good fight was lost. She left her frenemy floating in happy Chaeyoung feelings and went to find her skates.

The skate park was mostly empty by the time they got there, which wasn’t unusual for a Tuesday morning. Jihyo tied Tzuyu’s skates and Nayeon helped her with her helmet, and for a moment it was like they’d gone back in time to when they’d first became friends. Tzuyu, a shy little ten-year-old alone in the skate park, and Jihyo immediately seeing her wobbling around the place and deciding that she was theirs. Jeongyeon used to push Tzuyu up the ramps then catch her as she flew down. Whenever the younger girl fell, Nayeon would quickly fall herself in an over the top clumsy manner, and Tzuyu would always giggle instead of crying.

Then two years later that fateful summer camp incident occurred, and while Jihyo and Jeongyeon moved past it quickly, Tzuyu’s dynamic with Nayeon changed permanently. It was the beginning of their rivalry and their journey from friends to the archnemesis they were fated to become.

“Are you done staring at nothing? Jihyo and I want to have a race.”

Nayeon blinked, her reminiscing cut short. Her hand immediately went to her pocket, where her phone was still silent. No news from Sana, that was good right?

Couldn’t worry too much now. Just focus on what was in front of her.

“Of course I want to race! As if I would ever pass up the chance to destroy and humiliate you.”

Tzuyu didn’t even roll her eyes, yet her expression radiated sarcasm.

“You couldn’t beat me when I was ten and you were fourteen. You think you can beat me now?”

“I let you win! Jihyo, tell her!”

Jihyo was busy doing flips. Disgraceful, you could never count on your friends when you really needed them.

“Alright fine, let’s race. But this time when I beat you, you must admit that my powers are cooler than yours.”

“A time stick? Cooler than super strength? Good luck convincing anyone of that.”

“It’s called a reversal light and when I beat you, you will give it the respect it deserves!”

Nayeon did not beat her.

Nor did she beat her in the rematch. The whole thing was rigged, she decided. Tzuyu had much longer legs, therefore Nayeon deserved a head start. But no, Jihyo declared that Tzuyu had won fair and square, and so Nayeon had two choices. She could accept her loss gracefully, or she could argue loudly with both of them.

Naturally, she chose option B.

“No, screw you! Super strength should count as a drug! If this was the Olympics she’d be disqualified!”

“I’m pretty sure roller-skating isn’t an Olympic category.”

“But you don’t know for sure, do you? Besides, I saw you drink that protein shake before we left! Any non-biased referee would agree that-”

Her phone rang, and just like that Nayeon stopped arguing and answered, skating away so she could talk to Sana in private.

“Hey baby. How did it go?”

“Good.” Sana sounded much happier than yesterday. “It was really good Nayeon. They were super sad at first, they kept asking if they’d done something wrong. But then I explained about meeting you and falling in love and how we didn’t kill people or really hurt people that much and how we basically saved the hospital and probably the world. So yeah, they took it well in the end.”

“That’s good.” Nayeon’s whole body felt full of relief, as if she was the one who’d faced her parents. “I’m so happy for you Sana, you have no idea. I’m just… so relieved that you still have them as a part of your life.”

“You sure you don’t want to talk to your mom?”

“No.” Nayeon laughed. “Not at all. This really is just genuine happiness for you. I was so worried today, I almost booked a ticket to Japan before you rang, even though I knew Jeongyeon would make fun of me.”

“Well we can’t have that.” Sana’s voice was back to it’s normal teasing cheerfulness, and Nayeon felt like crying with joy. “If you really miss me that much we need another Skype session. Maybe fulfil the promise we made at the airport…?”

Nayeon gave a quick glance behind her. Tzuyu and Jihyo were playing happily together, doing tricks on the ramps.

“I can be home in ten minutes.” she said. “Celebratory Skype sex?”

“Celebratory Skype sex.” Sana agreed.

Nayeon grinned, not even bothering to take her skates off as she rolled out onto the street.

“I love you so much, and I’m proud of you.”

“I love you too.” Sana’s voice was soft and full of promise.

“Nayeon get back here! We still have your shoes!”

Nayeon looked behind her, seeing Jihyo furiously skating after her waving a pair of boots in the air. She gripped her phone and skated harder, grinning when she heard Sana’s giggles through the speaker. The wind whipped in her hair as she zoomed down the street, ignoring Jihyo’s screams as she jumped over a car.

Nayeon just threw back her head and laughed.

Life was good.


End file.
